Webmaster Forum / Flash / General Flash Topics / July 2008

Dear Flash Team,

I used to be an avid developer of shockwave flash videos way-back-when, and
really loved where ActionScript was going.  Now that Adobe owns Macromedia, and
we're approaching version 10, I really have to ask... Why are connections to
remote servers still sandboxed?

Flash is the industry leading if not bleeding edge of interactive web
application languages.  Yet, Flash is (isn't it?) the ONLY language out there
that prohibits connections that are remote to the server in which the
application is installed (stored).  If an application resides at www.site1.com,
it cannot talk to www.site2.com... or even www.site3.com for goodness sake.  
What gives?

HTML, Javascript, Java, and friends-alike have allowed client-run scripts the
necessary tools to allow visitors to access content that is remote to the
server they are connecting to.  This was the foundation of the "inter"net; all
things inter-connected.  So, what's the scoop?

I can appreciate the threat of malicious scripts trying to cause harm such as
massive unsolicited connections la DDoS attack, but surely there has to be a
reasonable solution to this.  Be it timed throttling to prevent a flood of
rogue connections, or the limitation of 2 connections per host or IP block, I'm
positive a compromise can be made.

So please.  If anyone who represents the Flash Development Team is reading
this.  Please provide me with some sort of logic behind this archaic
information firewall.  It's preventing so many good things from coming out of
Flash.

Thank you.

Eric