Re: Safe copy and paste with scripts

On Feb 27, 2006, at 4:34 PM, Jonas Sicking wrote:

> Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
>> I would like copy/paste integration to be on the agenda. I believe  
>> these operations can be offered securely (and implemented in  
>> various nonstandard ways by IE, Firefox and in some cases Safari):
>> 1) copy
>> 2) cut (in an editable context)
>> 3) event on copy that lets you prevent the default action and  
>> substitute other content
>> 4) event on paste that lets you prevent the default action and  
>> substitite other content
>
> An issue with 1-3 is that a site could stop the user from copying  
> content off the site. We already see a similar thing happening  
> where sites cancel the rightclick event to prevent users from doing  
> "view source".
>
> A site could use the copy-event in 3 to always replace the copied  
> contents with an empty string (or a string containing some  
> copyright statement). Or the site could on every key-press and  
> mouse-click cut/copy an empty string to the clipboard.

I think this is only an issue with #3 (unless you think sites will  
spin in a loop doing a copy on an empty selection, I think this is  
unlikely). However, IE already has these features. Perhaps we can  
come up with something compatible that doesn't make it possible to  
totally lock out the user. Or perhaps the copy end is not as  
important as the paste end for substituting custom content. Maybe it  
is enough to just allow adding extra clipboard types, and not  
overriding of standard ones.

Regards,
Maciej

Received on Tuesday, 28 February 2006 00:52:59 UTC