Special Edition Using Java™ 2 Enterprise Edition

The Advantages of Built-In Security

As the Internet has become more popular, security has become a much more important issue than it was back in the days when computers weren't constantly connected to each other. When Java first hit the scene, it was mainly used for downloaded applets that had restricted sandbox environments—preventing people from writing malicious applets that could spy on other users or damage computers.

The applet sandbox originally relied on a simple security manager that determined whether a class could perform a specific operation. Although the security manager framework wasn't applet-specific, few developers ever created their own security managers for their applications.

Java's original applet security model was helpful ...