[cap-talk] "ambient authority" on wiki.erights.org

Karp, Alan H alan.karp at hp.com
Mon Jun 15 14:13:14 EDT 2009


Rob Meijer wrote:
> 
> The most pressing issue however is I feel the classification of authority
> that originates from designating but ambient (static) permissions.
>
Fine, but that has nothing to do with a definition of ambient authority.  Consider the classic confused deputy with a log file readable by all via a static variable.  The compiler object is the only one with a reference allowing it to write the log file.  There is no confused deputy because the system is based on explicit designation of permissions.

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Alan Karp
Principal Scientist
Virus Safe Computing Initiative
Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
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