[cap-talk] when is the end of copy and paste from the web browser

[Rob Meijer]

On Mon, December 5, 2011 20:34, Jonathan S. Shapiro wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 3:18 AM, Rob Meijer <capibara at xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, December 5, 2011 05:01, John Carlson wrote:
>> > Right now, we have to copy lists of instruction from a web page to
>> > explorer, or shell.   When will be the day when we can safely directly
>> > execute list of instructions found in a web browser on our local
>> machine.
>> > For example, perhaps I want to install all the drivers to make Kinect
>> work
>> > with Skype on Windows from a forum?  What do we we need to do to make
>> this
>> > a reality?
>> >
>> > John
>>
>> Lets see, we have an untrusted piece of packed/obfuscated black-box
>> software that has encrypted connections to a wide range of untrusted
>> systems on the internet. We have untrusted driver code from an untrusted
>> source and we have what basically is a generic user input device.
>>
>> I believe that this basically resolves to being an instance of the CC
>> problem.
>
>
> I'm not sure what the CC problem is, but John is asking a valid question.
> It is reasonable for people to ask "will there ever be a time when I can
> stop worrying about this stuff?"

My apologies for "CC", I should have used the full term. I was talking
about the "Communicating Conspirators" problem:

http://www.erights.org/elib/capability/conspire.html

I was trying to make clear that IMO the description of the problem fits
that of a known unsolved problem.

IMHO until we manage to solve the CC problem, the answer to the question
"will there ever be a time when I can stop worrying about this stuff?"
would simply be "NO!".