[e-lang] anyone ever look at refactoring code to use object-capabilities?

[Brett Cannon]

I have been working (at a slow pace) on implementing a security mechanism
for Python based on object-capabilities at the application level.  The
original motivation for this work was to get Python into Firefox for
client-side web scripting.  Unfortunately I couldn't come up with a good
motivation out of that to get a PhD thesis in order to justify me getting
paid for my work.

But I have not given up on my Python security work and trying to find a
motivation to keep the work moving along and to end up with a PhD thesis.
An idea that my supervisor and I came up with today involves
(semi-)automatically refactoring existing Python code so as to follow an
object-capabilities security mechanism.  I have never come across any work
on the subject as most obj-cap languages were designed that way from the
ground up or were expected to be used with new code only.

So my question is whether anyone knows of any research into refactoring
existing code to use object-capabilities (e.g., taking a file object instead
of a file path string)?  I am obviously hoping the answer is "no".  =)

-Brett
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