[IP] Re: is restricted cell net access acceptable?

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: bts@evenmere.org (Brian T. Sniffen)
Date: July 5, 2007 12:19:35 AM EDT
To: christian@kuhtz.com, dave@farber.net
Subject: Re: [IP] is restricted cell net access acceptable?


> Isn't [Web app] access public enough for a mobile terminal where
> operators interests do matter, although perhaps not as much as
> operators constrain it to today?

It restricts one critical component: the iPhone cannot keep a secret.  I
don't mean that your data isn't safe---I'm sure Apple's put significant
effort into keeping secrets in their native apps, and that the SSL/TLS
code is well done.  I mean that the web apps I can write for an iPhone
cannot behave as principals in cryptographic protocols.  I can't write
an SSH client, for example, or a protocol for any instant messaging
system whatsoever.  The only way to do such is to run the interesting
protocol client remotely, and provide a web interface to access from the
iPhone.  That unnecessarily involves a third party.

As you say, the iPhone is a mobile network terminal---but its
capabilities as a peer on that network have been crippled.

I also cannot write an editor or viewer for locally stored data---that's
a problem related to secret keeping and to the origin-only restrictions
on JavaScript.

-Brian

--
Brian Sniffen                                        bts@alum.mit.edu
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