[cap-talk] Confused Deputies in Capability Systems

[Bill Frantz]

marcus.brinkmann at ruhr-uni-bochum.de (Marcus Brinkmann) on Tuesday, February 10, 2009 wrote:

>It's even simpler.  A confused deputy can also arise in capability systems
>if a capability is designated by a symbolic name rather than a capability.
>Any service that translates names to capabilities can potentially have a
>confused deputy problem.

I am truly confused. How does translating a name, such as clist item[5],
into a capability introduce the problem of using the wrong subject to check
the authority, which is the essence of confused deputy?

Marcus and Toby see this as obvious, and I don't see it at all, so, "What
we have here is a failure to communicate."

Cheers - Bill

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