Applet receiving multicast msg ?

Pascal Ledru (pledru@pluto.cs.uah.edu)
Thu, 30 Apr 1998 20:12:46 -0500

Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 20:12:46 -0500
From: Pascal Ledru <pledru@pluto.cs.uah.edu>
To: java-security@web4.javasoft.com
Subject: Applet receiving multicast msg ?

It seems that Applets cannot receive and send multicast messages.

In the MulticastSocket class checkMulticast is called in joinGroup and in send.

So an applet will not be able to receive a multicast msg even if the multicast
msg is from the host where the applet is from.

It seems to me that this is too restrictive.
Why is it necessary to call checkMulticast in joinGroup and not only in send
and receive? (where in receive it will check that the msg is coming from the
host where the Applet is from with a call such as dp.getAddress().getHostName()
)

It seems to me that this preclude lot of applications where I don't see
security problems.

For example, if RMI one day support MulticastRemoteObject, the Applet stock
notification example given by Sun could be implemented with
MulticastRemoteobject
which itself would probably use a MulticastSocket (only for receiving msg)

Does anybody known why Applets cannot receive multicast msg?

Thanks?

Pascal Ledru