TrustedWikis

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For developing and using a HTA- based WikiBrowser (see Wiki:HtmlApplication) a list of trusted wikis becomes important, because of security concerns.

Who has experience in such situations? What do you think about it?

-- FridemarPache

I use HTA for doing online help and support systems based on web-standard HTML files. The HTA comes up in a clean no-controls window. All the navigation is built into the HTML, exactly like a wiki site. You build the HTA with a single-frame framset, and run the foreign HTML in the frameset. Just start with the homepage, or with a CGI call. I'm running a captive wiki on win98/Apache, and pull the output (calls to wiki.pl modified to show only the page content, no header or footer) into IFRAMES. A frame in an HTA shell would be the same.

Try this for the HTA (save as wiki.hta, double-click on it while you have your internet connection running):


<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>Jer's Captive Wiki</title>
<HTA:APPLICATION ID="oHTA"
     APPLICATIONNAME="Wiki Browser"
     BORDER="thin"
     BORDERSTYLE="normal"
     CAPTION="yes"
     ICON=""
     MAXIMIZEBUTTON="no"
     MINIMIZEBUTTON="no"
     SHOWINTASKBAR="no"
     SINGLEINSTANCE="no"
     SYSMENU="yes"
     VERSION="1.0"/>
</head>

<frameset rows="1*" cols="1*" border="4">
    <frame src="https://www.usemod.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl" name="main" scrolling="yes" marginwidth="5" marginheight="5" application="yes">
</frameset>
</html>

-- JerryMuelver

Q: Como ce dice "HTA" en Ingleses, por favor? A: Wiki:HtmlApplication, alternatively HyperTextApplication?.

Also, a trusted Wiki? I'd almost like to bounce that idea off of Spafford. --DaveJacoby

In theory all the sites in the InterMap are trusted. In reality, it's hard to guarantee trust between such open environments. Someone posted porn and malicious javascript on ZwikiClone when it was SlashDotted for instance. However, one could trust the backend maybe. Of course, this all depends on the level of trust you need. What level of trust do you need? (This isn't clear from the above, by the way--why do you need trust?)

: I've been considering this recently, and I don't think you can get to the "trusted" level without dipping into HardSecurity. "Trusted" is a computer security term with certain criteria. Of course, [you can't trust trust]. I "trust" wikis to the extent that I trust the administrators to keep the text I write and restore if 3v1l 31337 h4x0rs decide to replace a page with 3vi1 h4x0r pages or something, the network administrators between me and UseMod to keep that network going, UseMod's hosting service to keep the machine up, and ICANN and Network Solutions to keep names resolving. Some of those are deserving of trust, some less so. I trust in it the same way I trust in my local gas station to continue stocking JoltCola?; enough to keep going there, but not enough to plan on if I ever needed JoltCola? to live. (I'm a programmer who doesn't need JoltCola? in order to live. That's a sad, sat sight.)

: A TrustedSystem has the trust include hardware, software, connectivity and so many other requirements that making a TrustedWiki? would only work on a specific operating system with specific hardware. You can "trust" a system without having to trust that system. --DaveJacoby

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TrustedWikis

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