Notes: Thursday 6 November 2003

Schedule

• Tuesday, 11 November: PS5 Part 2
• Tuesday, 18 November: No class
• Tuesday, 25 November: PS6 Due
• Tuesday, 2 December: Exam 2 Out
• Friday, 5 December: Exam 2

Turning in PS5

If your program works, you do not need to turn in your PS5 code on paper. Just submit a zip file with all your code, and turn in on paper:

• A user description of your program (what it does)
• A description of your design including MDD (showing subtyping relationships)
• A description of your implementation and testing strategy. This can be brief, but should explain the order in which you implemented things and why, and how you divided the work among your team.

If your program does not work, you should also turn in a printout of all your code. Notes

How well does Java satisfy Sun's marketing claims?

A simple, object-oriented, distributed, interpreted, robust, secure, architecture neutral, portable, high-performance, multithreaded, and dynamic language.

What does it mean for a programming language to be safe?

How does the Java programming language satisfy low-level code safety properties:

• Type Safety

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

• Memory Safety

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

• Control Flow Safety

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

How well does the Java VM language (byte codes) satisfy low-level code safety properties:

• Type Safety

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

• Memory Safety

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

• Control Flow Safety

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

What safety properties can and cannot be enforced by the Java byte code verifier?

What kinds of properties can be enforced by reference monitors?

What are the vulnerabilities in the Java security approach?

Links

• Some Hostile Java Applets
• Java Security Web Site (Gary McGraw and Ed Felten)
• Sun's Java Security [Applet Security FAQ] [Security Bug Chronology]

If J. Random Websurfer clicks on a button that promises dancing pigs on his computer monitor, and instead gets a hortatory message describing the potential dangers of the applet --- he's going to choose dancing pigs over computer security any day. If the computer prompts him with a warning screen like: "The applet DANCING PIGS could contain malicious code that might to permanent damage to your computer, steal your life's savings, and impair your ability to have children," he'll click "OK" without even reading it. Thirty seconds later he won't even remember that the warning screen even existed.

Bruce Schneier, Secrets and Lies, 2000.

University of Virginia Department of Computer Science CS 201J: Engineering Software

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation

cs201j-staff@cs.virginia.edu