On 27 Mar 2002, at 22:18, Bert said

> G'day
> 
> > <quote>
> ....
> > It is childishly simple for a malicious website to write to your
> AUTOEXEC.BAT, force
> > you to reboot by crashing your machine, and on reboot
> > automatically wipe
> your
> ...
> > <unquote>
> 
> I can not think of ANY way for JavaScript to write anything other
> than a harmless cookie to your hard-drive. If it's childishly
> simple, I must know less about JavaScript than I thought I did.  All
> books I have read on JavaSCRIPT must be hiding anything to do with
> writing to one's hard-drive under JavaScript control as I can't
> recall reading how to do it anywhere.
> 
> --
> Bert Doorn, Web Developer
> CIW Associate, IWA Member
> www.betterwebdesign.com.au
> Fast Loading, User Friendly Websites
> 
> 

And Martin Clifford said...

> JavaScript cannot read/write to any file on the client's computer,
> with the exception being cookies.  Cookies themselves are ASCII Text
> files, and as such, can do no harm to the users system configuration
> files (or any other file, for that matter).

I know nothing of Java folks.  But you both admit to its being able to 
write ASCII text to cookies -- simple text files (which requires it to find 
your cookie cache).  So why can't it write ASCII text to AUTOEXEC.BAT 
-- another simple text file, and not Read-only -- which is *always* 
located in C:\ ?  And we all know that a website can lock up your 
browser leading many to reboot.  The combination sounds too 
potentially dangerous to me.


Best regards,
Paul Witheridge
Systems Success
ssuccess(at)ebtech.net                  

 I'm not schooled in the science of human factors, 
but I suspect surprise is not an element 
of a robust user interface.
 --Chip Rosenthal

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