Security of Web Technologies: WebObjects

1. Security of Web Technologies: WebObjects Keshava P Subramanya (keshava@cs.ucsb.edu)

2. Introduction to WebObjects �If You�re Writing Code, You�re Doing Something Wrong� Makes it easy to develop and deploy enterprise-level web services and Java server applications Gives you the agility to respond quickly to change.

3. What can I do with WebObjects? Database-backed Web Applications (Plug-in support for Images, PDF, SVG, SMIL, Java Applets) Java Applications. SOAP & XML-RPC Access (to create web-services) Images. Both static and dynamic. Generally, you�ll only want WebObjects to serve up dynamic images since Web Servers do a better job. WebObjects comes with JavaPlot, a poorly documented framework for web image creation. However there are a number of well-documented, pure Java, open-source image generation libraries that integrate nicely with WebObjects. PDF. Adobe�s Portable Document Format can be generated dynamically as well. This has been used to great effect for generating printable materials from your Web Application. For example, Toyota Canada�s website will generate a customized printable brochure based on the model, color and options of the car you choose. SVG. Scalable Vector Graphics is essentially PDF in Extensible Markup Language (XML) format. While that�s a massive simplication, it�s hoped that SVG will become the standard vector graphics format on the web. An open source extension to WebObjects, SVGObjects, assists in dynamically generating SVG content from your application. WAP. Wireless Access Protocol, a lightweight version of HTML geared for cell phones, palm computers and other small web access devices. A commercial extension to WebObjects, named WAPObjects, aids in creating WAP-based content. SMIL. Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language: think presentations (animated slide shows) for the Web. WebObjects comes with well-documented SMIL extensions. Java Applets. When you need a more dynamic interface than what HTML can provide, you can turn to running Java programs inside the user�s Web Browser. WebObjects features an ability to partition Java objects between local and remote versions, and manage their state and synchronization automatically. Images. Both static and dynamic. Generally, you�ll only want WebObjects to serve up dynamic images since Web Servers do a better job. WebObjects comes with JavaPlot, a poorly documented framework for web image creation. However there are a number of well-documented, pure Java, open-source image generation libraries that integrate nicely with WebObjects. PDF. Adobe�s Portable Document Format can be generated dynamically as well. This has been used to great effect for generating printable materials from your Web Application. For example, Toyota Canada�s website will generate a customized printable brochure based on the model, color and options of the car you choose. SVG. Scalable Vector Graphics is essentially PDF in Extensible Markup Language (XML) format. While that�s a massive simplication, it�s hoped that SVG will become the standard vector graphics format on the web. An open source extension to WebObjects, SVGObjects, assists in dynamically generating SVG content from your application. WAP. Wireless Access Protocol, a lightweight version of HTML geared for cell phones, palm computers and other small web access devices. A commercial extension to WebObjects, named WAPObjects, aids in creating WAP-based content. SMIL. Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language: think presentations (animated slide shows) for the Web. WebObjects comes with well-documented SMIL extensions. Java Applets. When you need a more dynamic interface than what HTML can provide, you can turn to running Java programs inside the user�s Web Browser. WebObjects features an ability to partition Java objects between local and remote versions, and manage their state and synchronization automatically.

4. WebObjects� Design It was the first object-oriented application server