[Tutor] Socket and Ports

[Hugo Arts]

On Sun, Oct 16, 2011 at 4:20 PM, bob gailer <bgailer at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/16/2011 8:28 AM, Jacob Bender wrote:
>>
>> Dear Tutors,
>>
>>     I've been having an issue with socket. I wanted to use it for
>> transmitting strings over the Internet.
>
> That's good, because strings is all you can transmit.
>
>> The problem is that my friend insists that allowing python to transmit and
>> receive information via an Internet port is a bad idea. He claimed that I
>> could(and probably would) receive information that wouldn't necessarily do
>> my computer any good(in a nutshell).
>
> I am not the expert on this issue. My view:
>
> once you establish a socket connection then you wait to receive data. All
> the socket software (Python or other) does is receive a string. What you do
> with it is up to you. If you apply eval or exec to it than anything could
> happen. No one can IMHO cause any action via socket.
>

vulnerabilities in the lower level stack notwithstanding, of course.
But in essence, using sockets in python is not any more dangerous than
using sockets in any other language. You have to watch what you're
doing and be careful with the data you receive, but as long as you do
that you shouldn't be in any danger.

Hugo