Slashdot Article : Flash Privacy and Security misperceptions

Slashdot posted an article with concerns about privacy and security in the Flash player due to the players access to a user’s camera, microphone and its ability to store data (via shared objects). Below is some information and links which will hopefully dispel some of the misperceptions in the original article and in some of the comments attached to the article .

The Camera and Microphone access defaults to off. Anytime that a Flash movie tries to access the camera or microphone the user will be asked to allow or deny the access. The access is domain based.

The Shared Objects are very similar to cookies, the main difference being that you can store entire ActionScript objects, and they can be used with Flash projectors (they don’t require a web browser).

• Macromedia Flash MX Security Whitepaper
• Macromedia Flash MX Top 5 topics
• Microphone Settings
• Camera Settings
• LocalStorage Settings
• TechNote : What is a Shared Object
• Using Shared Objects in Macromedia Flash MX
• Interview with Jeremy Allaire (Macromedia CTO) where he discusses a “new communications server”.
• TechNote : using the local video object in Flash MX