[Zope] security risk in "many authors" situation

Kyler B. Laird laird@ecn.purdue.edu
Sun, 06 May 2001 07:48:04 -0500


I've been working on "security" from a perspective
of users/authors not being able to do more than
what they're granted permission to do.  I finally
realized that there's a huge risk in a system like
ours with many untrusted authors creating contnet
to be viewed by trusted users.

If, for example, a student makes a page as part of
his homework, any commands he puts in it will be
executed with the privileges of his professor when
it is checked.  This is a bit like getting someone
to run your own script in UNIX, but vastly more
likely.

Any ideas for getting around this?  I'm stumped.
I want to be able to do this in many situations,
but certainly it can be devastating in some.

Thank you.

--kyler