| On Tue, 23 Jan 1996, Benjamin Renaud wrote: | | > Yes. And if you also let an intruder in your house, have them sit at | > your computer with your newborn child in the room and go on vacation, | > things can get really, really nasty. | | I guess that wu-ftp never was distributed with security holes. Never | heard of anyone distributing maliscious lookalike packages. How many | folks do you think downloaded the linux-JDK and use it without checking | it out first. That takes care of the compiler. And distributing bad | netscape or other browsers is childs play. So I guess your newborn is | relevant. | | Stick to your belief that Java is secure because, darn it, it just would | be hard for anyone to do bad things with it. Please. I think what we should worry about is the second-order effects of Java; how will the world look like when Java is everywhere? We should also not discount the "social" effects; what will people do to try to circumvent the "stupid" safeguards that Java will be distributed with. I have earlier heard the opinion from the Java team (I believe) that this is not "Java's fault", and I can understand that standpoint. My opinion is still that the net result (pun intended!) is even weaker security, because of these two reasons above. (In my darker moments, I feel that the whole field of computer security is in a major crisis. Ever heard of the Emperor's New Clothes? ;-)) Just some mumbling from, Christian Wettergren