Beautiful Architecture

Ultimate Security

Allowing unvetted code to run on your machine is fraught with danger, and this danger is getting worse. There is a rapidly growing list of malicious software (“malware”) on the Internet, variously known as “trojans,” “keyloggers,” “hostageware,” “spamware,” and “viruses.” You could fall victim to data loss, identity theft, and fraud, and worst of all, might become implicated in a criminal offense if you did not exercise caution when running software downloaded from an unknown or unverified source.

For every security hole patched by the makers of the popular operating systems and Internet browsers, it seems two more grow in its place. Knowing this, how can you ever run code that might genuinely enhance your browsing experience or provide useful services?

Java code, when run in the Java Applet Sandbox, has provided this level of reassurance for over a decade. Add the extra independent layer of security represented by JPC and you have a double-insulated sandbox in which to run unvetted code. The JPC website (http://www-jpc.physics.ox.ac.uk) demonstrates how JPC can boot DOS and run a number of classic games inside a standard applet as part of a web page; in other words, they show an unvetted x86 (DOS) executable running in a completely secure container on any machine.

There is one major downside to running JPC within an applet sandbox: the security restrictions do not allow JPC to create classloaders, and therefore the dynamic compilation that gives JPC much of its speed ...