I wanted to ask, can’t anything be done about trusted certificates so that users wouldn’t be scared away by the pop-up dialogue if you only use libraries like lwjgl, jogl, jme or such. I mean like https connections have already trusted certificates that won’t be asked a permission for from users, can’t anything like that be done to java certificates too. For example VeriSign would sign the certificates for the libraries and then any permission wouldn’t be asked from user to run something that only uses those signed jars.
Https doesn’t need to show the user a dialog[1] because the permissions it grants the browser/web server are minimal, you can only really upload data the user has already entered. In contrast a full-permissions Java app can potentially run rampant over your harddrive without any further input.
Just because they both use certificates doesn’t mean that they’re at all related in terms of behaviour.
The only practical option would be to have a pre-approved list of certificates (and/or a top level Sun certificate) in the JRE, so software using one of these would be considered ‘safe’ and not need a dialog. That’s basically what the (now broken) Jogl magic certificate did, and doesn’t really scale - you can’t expect Sun to grant magic certificates to open source projects where anyone can go in and alter the code.
[1] except in cases where the certificate is expired or otherwise invalid, in which case a dialog may ask the user whether they’ll accept it or not.
someone who altered the code would have to resign it taking away the magic signature…
I want an applet or jws to ask first. Any native lib could do anything. From wipe a hard drive to download a bunch of porn and phone the feds. Even if sun signed it, i would disable a “passtrough”. Its an applet, trying to run native code that you just downloaded. Its right up there with active X.
isn’t the basic purpose of signing with a cryptographic framework that if u alter a signed jar then the certificate becomes invalid?
’
think he is right 
Yes, but this doesn’t affect things in any way. You’d still have to get Sun to vet, approve and sign every release of every library and/or game that needed permissions. That’s just not practical.
what they could do is make so like 100 people have to agree that they think it should get it, and then if it gets that then a guy from sun can just check it out quickly…
I don’t trust Sun/Oracle to allow another company to run its code the moment an applet loads in my browser.
This is so staggeringly retarded I’m completely lost for words. A state that I wish would affect h3ckboy, so we could get some sensible discussion around here.
what it is called a petition, people do it all the time…
explain why it is retarted.
Because 100 random nobodys off the internet shouldn’t be able to assert what runs on my computer without asking. Its vetoing the whole idea of a sandbox and its more that a security issue, its pretty stupid. If you could get a cert that way I would disable java and filter it at the firewall just to be safe.
fine, sry I said something stupid… we all do it sometimes 
Check it out quickly? If they’re asserting that it’s safe they need to do a lot more than check it out quickly or they’ll be facing a barrage of class-action lawsuits and bad publicity.
read posts b4 answering…
Maybe he just really wanted to also point out how dangerous your suggestion was.
Me too.
Damn, that’s dangerous.
Yeah h3ckboy. WTF.
;)
Precisely. I did read the posts before answering. I don’t want someone else reading this thread later to think that delt0r’s objection is the only problem. (Or you, for that matter).
Why? As if somebody at Sun would consider the idea.
Part of the purpose of this site is education, is it not? I assume that the average reader of a thread on this forum is less experienced than the average poster. If one newbie lurker takes away the lesson that security is hard and needs to be thought through in detail, and that spotting malicious flaws requires meticulous care, that’s worth 5 minutes of my time (and a further 5 on explanations as to why it’s worth it…)