Re: [Zope] Preventing files from being viewed by web clients

2006-05-09 Thread Dieter Maurer
Brian wrote at 2006-5-8 13:19 -0500:
I have a flash app that accesses .xml files.

The source is viewable and some creative crackers have figured out how to
meld a url together to get vital information from those .xml's.

I need to prevent the web client from directly accessing them.

Is there a directive (such as Apache's) or mechnisim to keep web clients
from accessing yet allow my app access these files?

As others reported, there is no easy solution.

However, flash is probably intelligent enough that is could be
able to implement what I call the trusted application concept.

A trusted application somehow contains a secret (something like
application_id and application_passwod) it can use to
prove to the server that it has send the request (and not some
other application).

Kerberos is a standard protocol to implement trusted applications
(among others).


If you do not have Kerberos, you can do something similar of your own.
Look at HTTP Digest Authentication to learn how the
application can send its secret in an uncromprimizing way.
On the server side, you make your resources inaccessible
by untrusted access and use a script (probably an ExternalMethod)
that checks the application credentials and grants access
to your sensible resources only when it can prove the application
is trusted.

-- 
Dieter
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[Zope] Preventing files from being viewed by web clients

2006-05-08 Thread Brian
I have a flash app that accesses .xml files.

The source is viewable and some creative crackers have figured out how to
meld a url together to get vital information from those .xml's.

I need to prevent the web client from directly accessing them.

Is there a directive (such as Apache's) or mechnisim to keep web clients
from accessing yet allow my app access these files?

Somthing like

FilesMatch \.(?i:gif|jpe?g|xml)$
   Order allow,deny
   Allow from some file name
   Deny from all
   some other web trick
/FilesMatch

in zope.conf or ???

TIA

Brian



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Re: [Zope] Preventing files from being viewed by web clients

2006-05-08 Thread Lennart Regebro

On 5/8/06, Brian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

I have a flash app that accesses .xml files.

The source is viewable and some creative crackers have figured out how to
meld a url together to get vital information from those .xml's.

I need to prevent the web client from directly accessing them.

Is there a directive (such as Apache's) or mechnisim to keep web clients
from accessing yet allow my app access these files?

Somthing like

FilesMatch \.(?i:gif|jpe?g|xml)$
   Order allow,deny
   Allow from some file name
   Deny from all
   some other web trick
/FilesMatch

in zope.conf or ???


Zopes security is based on being authenticated, so no. What you can do
it let the Flash app login as a special user, and make the files only
accessible to that user. To prevent people from sneaking the password
from the IP-traffic, you also need to use SSL from the Flash app.

--
Lennart Regebro, Nuxeo http://www.nuxeo.com/
CPS Content Management http://www.cps-project.org/
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Re: [Zope] Preventing files from being viewed by web clients

2006-05-08 Thread Andreas Jung



--On 8. Mai 2006 13:19:02 -0500 Brian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


I have a flash app that accesses .xml files.

The source is viewable and some creative crackers have figured out how to
meld a url together to get vital information from those .xml's.

I need to prevent the web client from directly accessing them.

Is there a directive (such as Apache's) or mechnisim to keep web clients
from accessing yet allow my app access these files?



This question makes little sense. If your flash app must accest the .xml 
file then it must be accessible for everyone. You think about checking the

user agent for flash apps but all this stuff can be faked.

-aj


--
ZOPYX Ltd.  Co. KG - Charlottenstr. 37/1 - 72070 Tübingen - Germany
Web: www.zopyx.com - Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Phone +49 - 7071 - 793376
E-Publishing, Python, Zope  Plone development, Consulting


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Re: [Zope] Preventing files from being viewed by web clients

2006-05-08 Thread Tino Wildenhain
Brian wrote:
 I have a flash app that accesses .xml files.
 
 The source is viewable and some creative crackers have figured out how to
 meld a url together to get vital information from those .xml's.

Well, dont put vital information there :-)

 I need to prevent the web client from directly accessing them.
 
 Is there a directive (such as Apache's) or mechnisim to keep web clients
 from accessing yet allow my app access these files?

Your flash app is a web client too and thus indistinguishable
from any other web client.

 Somthing like
 
 FilesMatch \.(?i:gif|jpe?g|xml)$
Order allow,deny
Allow from some file name
 what exactly would you want to
put into this hypothetical statement? :-)

Deny from all
some other web trick
 /FilesMatch
 
 in zope.conf or ???

No. Just dont send something over the web to any client
what you dont want to send to people. Everything you send
can and will be read no matter whats the intended client
is. SSL nor custom auth will prevent people from reading
it. (see tcpflow and openssl client)

Regards
Tino
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