Date:         Mon, 9 Oct 1995 15:12:38 EDT
Reply-To:     The NOMAD2 Discussion List
Sender:       The NOMAD2 Discussion List
From:         "William J. Ryan"
Subject:      Update security

Dan:

UPROC and RULE are good tools for deciding whether or not to
update a record, but they do not let you "program the update" in a way
that allows you to track it.  Jerry Knowles' approach would let you receive
information about updates via the virtual reader -- now how do you make sure
that it is your program that performs the update?  Some ideas:

1 - Require that your procedure is the one running at the moment of update
    by specifying something like:

    MODIFY t UPROC &PROCEDURE EQ 'myproc';

2 - Still a bright user may attempt to clone and modify the update
    procedure that you wish to keep secure.  In that event, possibly
    something like in your high-level procedure may fool him/her:

    &PROCEDUREMODE = 'x';  ! requires that procedure execute from "x" disk !

3 - Or you might specify a UPROC that test a hidden value that only
    your prescanned procedure sets (and knows about).  For example:

    MODIFY t UPROC &secretval = 12345;

It seems to me that there probably is a reasonably security measure
available, depending on the kind of user(s) you need to watch.  Hope
this helps.

Bill Ryan -- Information Works, Inc.
back to index