Access Control Help please!!

lancerlotz has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hello, Maybe you could give me some advice. I am almost finished with a webcam community I've been working on for a year. I have webcam software that allows/denies by IP Address. All of my members will download my cam software and the software has it's own webserver. The problem I'm having is I don't want anyone to access the cam software unless they are coming from my site. The referrer script protection is really bad and I thought there might be a way to use a proxy to accomplish this. I tried using a perl script and it works except it doesn't allow me to see java applets. Do you have any advice on a proxy server I could use that people wouldn't have to configure they're browsers for? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Also if anyone can think of a good way to stop cam jacking please let me know!! Mark

Comment on Access Control Help please!!

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Re: Access Control Help please!! by C-Keen (Monk) on Sep 28, 2001 at 11:21 UTC
I am not sure if I understood your problem right but here are some thoughts I came up with: If you want that the programm is only used by registered people on your site implement a id algorithm like registering with your website first and then exchanging some generated keys with the program and your webcam, so that only registered programs are allowed to connect. Example: Alice is registered at Bob's site. When Alice starts the software, the program will ask her for her id. Then the programm registers/logs in on your web site. The script on the site will generate some unique hash value and this value will be transmitted by your cam soft to your webcam. If it is valid transmission of data begins. I hope this is some help. If I am wrong / did'nt get your problem rigth, please offer more details to me. regards, C-Keen	[reply]
Re: Re: Access Control Help please!! by lancerlotz (Initiate) on Sep 29, 2001 at 09:31 UTC
The idea you suggest is great. The only problem is I've already got the software finished. I was hoping to find a way to use a proxy to fetch the cam feeds. In other words say Alice wants to view Bob's web cam stream. Alice is already a registered member. She clicks on the link to see Bob's feed and it sends her request to Bob's web cam software which is on HIS computer. Something like http://Bob'sIPADDRESS:8888/SHOWCAM.HTML. Ok since Bob's webcam software will only allow access from my domain, Alice couldn't get the feed unless there was a way to make Bob's software think it was my Ip trying to connect and not Alice. Could I get a proxy to do this? Or maybe a Perl script like cgi-proxy? I tried cgi-proxy and it worked except it wouldn't load java applets. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Mark	[reply]
Re: Re: Re: Access Control Help please!! by C-Keen (Monk) on Sep 29, 2001 at 13:37 UTC
I came up with another idea: Why not use a proxy that redirects traffic from Alice to your host, does the authentication there and then sends an ok to your software on Bob's machine? You would also end up with a lot of traffic which is probably not what you want. I don't think you will get out ouf changing you webcam software, maybe by adding a authentication module that will be started whenever someone tries to access the script. I hope this helps Regards, C-Keen	[reply]