[Catalyst] Encrypt /Decrypt URI

Matija Grabnar matija at serverflow.com
Fri May 18 16:31:51 GMT 2007


Matt S Trout wrote:
> The only use I can see for obfuscating the URL would be to convince a naive
> client that your app's more secure than it is (note as Bruce Schneier says,
> managing -perceived- security can be as important as managing -actual-
> security, but don't confuse the two :).
>   
I see another use to obfuscating **part** of the URL: when you have 
things you don't want the users enumerating. Like where you have 
edit-item/(itemnumber). You DON'T want itemnumber to be a global counter 
(for instance, the autoincrement id for the item table), because then a 
black hat may find a way
to view other items simply by changing the item number in the URL. What 
you want there is either an item number that is only unique within the 
context of a given user, or an opaque identifier that doesn't make it 
obvious what values would come before or after it.

But other than that, I don't see a good reason for obfuscating the URL, 
either.




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