Jeff Weinstein <jsw@netscape.com> wrote:
It might be interesting to make a small plugin that just does some core stuff like gathering entropy, mod-exp, and related stuff difficult or too slow in java. I mainly brought it up because people were asking about calling native code from java.
In an alternate universe in which I didn't have projects to finish, I may be interested in doing something like this. However, I haven't been able to find information on how to write Unix (or preferably portable) plugins.
Any hints?
- Ian
I don't have any hints, but I think people need to be aware up front that calling native code from a Java applet disables any security that might otherwise be enforced for the applet. It's OK to do this, as long as you understand up front how things work. One of the restrictions on applets is that they can't load DLLs or .so's. People get around that restriction by choosing to install a DLL on the local machine in such a way that the applet can invoke methods defined in that DLL (or .so) By choosing to do that, they're deliberately saying "it's OK, I understand this native method might do anything at all on the machine and it's OK by me" Marianne