Subject: Re: notify_ascii()

From: Gilmore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1992 16:03:59 -0800

Amazing ... for every feature, there's a security risk.  Alas.  Perhaps a
compile-time option similar to that for open_network_connection(), call it
OUTBOUND_ASCII or some such?  But that doesn't really put responsibility
where it should be, since the risk for notify_ascii() is to the _player_,
not the system.

Still, in connecting though telnet to another system normally, you're giving
implicit permission for that system to send you whatever character-sequences
it needs to send in order to get its job done; things such as editors send
such sequences, and I presume this means that on a terminal such as that
which yduJ described, one could write a file and send it to someone which
would actually FORCE him to type commands?  This seems ludicrous.  And the
only way I can see for it to be abused is for some wizard on a MOO to write
a malicious verb, and even then it would ONLY work on players with that term
type.  This doesn't seem to be enough risk to outweigh the GREAT benefits
of being able to send escape-sequences.  And they are great; imagine a full
screen editor for a MOO, or (more light-heartedly) MOO-tetris.  Or a visual
movement system for something like a cybernetic matrix.

Pavel, how about it? :)

				- Gilmore

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1992 06:11:01 -0800

> the risk for notify_ascii() is to the _player_,
> not the system.

Yup.  That makes it even more difficult to deal with.

> it needs to send in order to get its job done

When I normally telnet to another system, I run programs which I trust.  In a
MOO setting, this is not always the case.

What is *really* needed for more fancy output from MUDs in general are more
specialized clients.  I'm not going to reheat all the reasons for this, but
one of them is that merely sending terminal escape sequences in MUD output is
not general or powerful enough for everything that one might want to do.  

I am given to understand that some work in this area is already going on. 
Astro-VR (?) for example, allows folks to display images stored "on the MOO"
(actually a pointer to an ftp site for the right image files, I think) on
their bitmapped terminals through the use of a smart emacs client.

According to tantalizing hints in Pavel's letters to MOO-cows, there is some
code for 'window-based interfaces to MOO objects' on the way in the form of a
project named Jupiter.  Enquiring minds want to know.

The general feeling on fancy MUD output seems to me to be aimed a bit higher
than just doing cute things on your terminal, anyway.

-K*