[IP] is restricted cell net access acceptable?
Brian T. Sniffen
bts at evenmere.org
Thu Jul 5 12:19:35 PDT 2007
> Isn't [Web app] access public enough for a mobile terminal where
> operators interests do matter, although perhaps not as much as
> operators constrain it to today?
It restricts one critical component: the iPhone cannot keep a secret. I
don't mean that your data isn't safe---I'm sure Apple's put significant
effort into keeping secrets in their native apps, and that the SSL/TLS
code is well done. I mean that the web apps I can write for an iPhone
cannot behave as principals in cryptographic protocols. I can't write
an SSH client, for example, or a protocol for any instant messaging
system whatsoever. The only way to do such is to run the interesting
protocol client remotely, and provide a web interface to access from the
iPhone. That unnecessarily involves a third party.
As you say, the iPhone is a mobile network terminal---but its
capabilities as a peer on that network have been crippled.
I also cannot write an editor or viewer for locally stored data---that's
a problem related to secret keeping and to the origin-only restrictions
on JavaScript.
-Brian
--
Brian Sniffen bts at alum.mit.edu
GPG Key fingerprint DED2 61C9 3CBA E7A2 D20D F933 D379 A524 79E0 25F1
Want to verify that I sent this message? Use http://www.gnupg.org/
and http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ with Thunderbird
-------------------------------------------
Archives: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
--- end forwarded text
--
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
More information about the cypherpunks-legacy
mailing list