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by maxwell_smart 5307 days ago
Why? This seems like the perfect thing for an NaCl application.
5 comments

NaCl doesn't have the low level networking capabilities needed for SSH, Telnet, etc. because they would be a security risk (a "game" could run a portscanner or look for open SMB shares on the network).
It might be a bad idea to put too many eggs in to the NaCl basket, as other browser vendors are resisting it pretty strongly.
NaCl is nice and all, but it's better to have something that works perfectly fine on top of Javascript/HTML5, rather than only inside NaCl.
HTML5/Javascript can't do raw socket operations, which is the big obvious downside here.
NaCl intentionally has the same sandbox, same security model, and same I/O capabilities as JS. In this case, NaCl would still be limited to XHR or WebSocket.
Ah, I didn't know that. How does naclssh do it, then? It seemed like it was going far more low-level than the standard sandboxed security.
From the snippet you posted above, it looks like it depends on a "websocket-to-socket proxy".
Aha, okay. Misunderstanding on my part, then!
Sure, but they can also add a new API for raw socket operations.
This would undoubtedly be a bad idea. There is a reason it doesn't already exist.
I'm not saying open it up to just anything, but if this is for ChromeOS, they could certainly grant access to manually-installed extensions (not extension gallery extensions) and/or to OS components.
"Install this app* to get 10 free cows in FarmVille!"

* Note: App may include port scanner. Do not look directly into the operational end of the port scanner.

but a proxy can
Sounds like the perfect thing for a JNLP app to me.
The MindTerm ssh2 applet has been around for a very long time:

http://www.cryptzone.com/products/agmindterm/

Shhh, now that embedded Java does everything we need, we must pretend it no longer exists — how else could we justify all the insane technological contortions that we'll need in order to justify profiting through sequestering users' data, renting 1980s-era features to them, and selling their attention, intimate habits, and social bonds to advertisers?