CoralCDN Lesson: The great naming conflation of the Web
The last post argued how CoralCDN’s API through domain manipulation provided a simple yet surprisingly powerful content delivery mechanism. Unfortunately, its technique flies in the face of the web’s use of domain names.
Conflating naming, location, and authorization, browsers use domains for three purposes:
- Domains provide a human-readable name for what administrative entity a client is interacting with (e.g., the “common name” identified in SSL server certificates).
- Domains specify where to retrieve content after they are resolved to IP addresses (through DNS).
- Domains specify what security policies to enforce on web objects and their interactions, especially as it relates to browser Same Origin … Continue Reading