Web Security, Part Three
By Lincoln D. Stein
The project will not aim...to use sophisticated network authorization systems. Data will be either readable by the world (literally), or will be readable only on one file system. All network traffic will be public.
—Tim Berners-Lee
The occasion for this quote was a proposal to the CERN administration to create a new hypertext system called "WorldWideWeb." This excerpt illustrates that document confidentiality was not the top thing on the World Wide Web creators' minds when the protocols were invented. Web servers were originally designed for maximum promiscuity—anybody could read any Web document anywhere in the world.
Outside of academics, however, most of the world demands graded levels of confidentiality. Some documents, such as marketing literature, are completely public. Others, such as departmental budgets, must be restricted to a small groups of authorized individuals. Still others, such as an individual's electronic bank statement, are for a single person's eyes only.
There are two ways that confidential Web documents can fall into the wrong hands:
- An unauthorized user can connect to your Web site and download a private document.
- A private document can be intercepted "in flight" as it travels over the Internet using widely available "packet-sniffer" programs running on any of the machines on the route between client and host.
To keep documents truly private, you have to close both holes.
