Nick Skrepetos wrote:
[snip]
> You have touched on one of the biggest problems today - the
> misinformation regarding technologies such as "ActiveX" - ActiveX is
> not bad

activex is an active content technology whose use (at least in the
context of the world wide web) generally follows the pattern of
automatic execution as soon as you render the page... *that* is bad, but
it's not unique to activex...

> - it in fact has many viable and productive uses such as what
> we do with it on our File Research Center, and online virus,
> anti-spyware scanners, etc. etc. etc.. The XPI/XPCOM plugin
> architecture in Firefox shares the same risks as ActiveX does for the
> Internet Explorer platform. If a user installs it - the plugin has free
> reign on the system.

in some ways activex risks mirror those of xpi risks in the gecko engine
(specifically when you're dealing with new intentionally malicious
activex controls), but in others they more closely resemble risks from
javascript or java in the sense that they form an API that can be used
for good or bad things (the system can and generally does have a variety
of legitimate activex controls already on it that have been specifically
marked safe for scripting even though they aren't)...

[snip]
> What needs to happen is education - not the, typically uneducated,
> propaganda of saying "ActiveX is bad". I think this will make a great

education is not all that needs to happen... finer grained (and more
intuitive) controls are also needed to prevent automatic execution of
this sort of active content on untrusted sites... and the way new
activex controls are presented should be changed to more accurately
denote the fact that they're essentially new software and carry many of
the same risks as any other software download...

--
"it's not the right time to be sober
now the idiots have taken over
spreading like a social cancer,
is there an answer?"