On 27 Nov 2001 21:31:39 GMT, DeMoN LaG <n@a> wrote: >[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Chris Hill) wrote in >[EMAIL PROTECTED]">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED], on 27 Nov 2001: >> >>>Java and Netscape's plugins don't get access to the rest of the >>>system, in general. I remember Heat.net's plugin installer was a >>>Java applet, before it could do anything I was prompted a huge >>>security alert saying "Install software on machine - HIGH RISK". I >>>don't get that secure feeling with IE. IE is just too leaky for my >>>tastes >> >> Netscape plugins DO get access to the entire system once installed. >> > >No they don't. Perhaps we are missing each other along some lines. A >plugin is run in a little virtual sandbox area type of thing. It can't >spontaneously decide to rename a file in my \winnt\system32 folder. It >does not have root, or administrator, or any high ranking access level. >It can only muck with certain things. At worst, a malicious Netscape >plugin could intentionally corrupt my netscape preferences or similar. >If it were to try to format the hard drive, it would get no where. >Active X allows much more system access than this, and as such, much >more security problems
OK, then we disagree about what a plugin is. When I talk about a plugin, I mean a shared library (aka DLL) that is loaded by the browser and used through the Netscape plugin API (Opera, Netscape, mozilla do this and IE used to). As far as I know this is the commonly accepted definition of a browser plugin. Some well known examples of plugins: QuickTime, Flash, Sun's Java plugin. I'm not talking about JavaScript or Java applets (although plugins can be scripted from JavaScript). The kind of plugin I am talking about inherits all the privledges of the user running the browser (by virtue of being loaded into the browser's address space and being native code). So if you as a user can rename files in \winnt\system32, then so can the plugin running inside the browser that the user started. It has admin access only if the user is an admin, it has the same access as the user. Plugins have the same fundamental security issues as ActiveX controls. There are implementation differences, but these are unrelated to the basic issue. Chris Hill [EMAIL PROTECTED]
