Re: Accessibility penalty?
Re: Accessibility penalty?
- Subject: Re: Accessibility penalty?
- From: Guy Fullerton <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 11:26:47 -0700
On Tuesday, July 29, 2003, at 11:28 PM, Bill Cheeseman wrote:
on 03-07-29 9:29 PM, Andrew Taylor at email@hidden wrote:
Security. The Accessibility API allows programs to control the
machine and do anything to another program completely behind the
user's back. It is potentially the "back door" that weakens UNIX when
remote control of another machine is left unguarded. It is just like
putting your valuable data on a machine and turning on guest access
on the internet. So Apple turns it off by default (as they should)
and requires a real user to turn it on.
On this theory, AppleScript and a whole lot of other built-in utilities
would also be turned off by default.
AppleScript isn't considered quite the same type of security risk
because app developers get to make the choice of exactly how much (if
any) of their application is scriptable. (The details of how this
choice is made depends on the framework used to build the app, of
course.)
However, Accessibility happens behind the developer's back (for the
standard widgets/controls/views), thereby eliminating the developer's
ability to choose not to support Accessibility for any of their
existing apps. The user cannot be guaranteed that any of their existing
apps offer the correct level of security with respect to the
Accessibility APIs, so therefore Accessibility must be turned off by
default.
If the Accessibility APIs predated Mac OS X (the way AppleScript did),
and if app developers understood and dealt with the implications of the
implicit support via standard widgets, then perhaps Apple could have
turned it on by default in Mac OS X.
I'm not sure what other built-in utilities you are referring to, so I
can't speak to those.
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