From: "Josh M. Osborne" <stripes@va.pubnix.com>
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 95 13:27:58 PDT
To: Rich Salz <rsalz@osf.org>
Subject: Re: netscape mail starts java attachments upon get new mail...
In-Reply-To: <9510091958.AA23589@sulphur.osf.org>
Message-ID: <QAA01714.199510092027@garotte.va.pubnix.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


In message <9510091958.AA23589@sulphur.osf.org>, Rich Salz writes:
>>As far as I know Java apps can only make network connections to the
>>IP address they were loaded from.
>
>What part of the state of my machine can they access and send out
>to the "home port"?  Can they read /etc/passwd, make NIS requests,
>etc?

As far as I know Java Applets either can't do file I/O, or can only
do it in a small area of the file namespace that you set aside for it
(like ~/java-data).  I don't recall any classes that let you make local
NIS requests.  (however this does imply that if you set up a Java Applet
writable area so that you can use the nifty Java rolodex, that other
Java applets could damage that data or send copies to "home base" - I
don't know if there is any finer-grained access, and I havn't yet been
able to do more then _read_ all the Java docs from Sun.  All thery, no
experiance.)