Hi

At the cost of sounding dense...wouldn't POSTing the variables solve the 
problem. Then the user would not see them in the URL.


[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Matt Parlane) wrote in
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]: 

> Hi...
> 
> The problem comes when you are mixing variables recieved from the HTTP
> request, and your own user variables.  Consider the following code:
> 
> function authenticate_user(){
>   if($password == 'secret'){
>     $authenticated = 'yes';
>   }
>   return $authenticated;
> }
> 
> If someone passes the variable authenticated=yes in the url request
> string, the user will be authenticated no matter whether their password
> matches or not.  This is obviously a simplified example, and I'd hope
> that no programmer would ever do this, but things like have been known
> to happen, and there have already been exploits for it.
> 
> The logic behind the change is that it is really not much extra work to
> type $_GET['something'] than just $something, and it is infinitely more
> secure - so you should write your scripts using the $_REQUEST variables
> whenever possible.
> 
> Hope that helps...
> 
> Matt
> 
> "Then" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> Hi All
>>
>> I am a PHP newbie. I don't understand why global variables are turned
>> off 
> by
>> default in PHP4.2.0... something to do with security. Could some one
> please
>> help me understand how it's a security issue. Thanks
> 
> 
> 



-- 
Lots of Luck
theN
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

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