Re: [xsl] Unable to get Firefox to apply XSL

["Michael Kay mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx" <xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>> Maybe security is of higher importance than convenience?
>
> In particular in multi-user systems there's no reliable way to detect
> that you've wandered into another user's directory.  This can happen on
> Windows and Mac just as much as Linux or Unix of course.  So there was
> a class of attacks that involved getting a user to load a script that
> someone else had written.
>

Rather like double-clicking on a Word document with macros, in fact.

It's all a workaround for the fact that we're using operating systems whose
security model is 50 years out of date. Where there's a strong distinction
between "programs" and "data" that's unrealistic in today's world, and where a
program is either trusted or untrusted, and if it's trusted then it can do
anything, and if it's not trusted then it can do nothing.

I guess we'll have to wait for an even bigger cyber-disaster before the world
wakes up to the fact that it doesn't have to be like this. Meanwhile, browsers
are trying to provide a layer of protection that ought to be provided in the
operating system, and of course they're doing it really clumsily.

Michael Kay
Saxonica