From: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 1996 17:47:00 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Mindshare and Java
Message-ID: <199604292357.QAA17206@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 03:56 PM 4/27/96 -0700, mrm@netcom.com (Marianne Mueller) wrote:
>One thing I don't understand, why do you trust signed code? 
>So you know the code is signed by Jack the Ripper.  so what?  How do 
>decide what you want the code to be allowed to do?   I think there's 
>nothing for it but a kind of limited capabilities model built on top
>of the authentication mechanism. 

Some code comes from random sources; signatures there mainly buy you 
the ability to blame someone if the code hoses your machine,
and thus reduces the chance that someone will hose you.

But as Java develops, there'll be more commercial code available;
I'd trust Java code signed by Microsoft just as much as I'd
trust any other Microsoft code I'm running on my machines.
Maybe more, given the quality of some of the Microsoft code I'm
running now :-)
#					Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, stewarts@ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215