Can you restrict hosts for the flash player?

[JustMark]

I'm looking at developing some content for a major bank. They love flash, but don't want employees using flash outside their intranet mainly due to worries about employees accessing streaming content that would slow down network access at branches with a slow internet connection.

Is there a way to configure the flash player so that it will only work with a specific list of hosts?

Thanks!

[Flash Gordon]

search for "_url" in flash. It has been talked about a lot in the past week.

[JustMark]

I don't see anything here that solves my issue.

Once Flash is installed it will work with any site a user goes to. I need Flash to DENY content that isn't on the corporate network. Aside from a compiled flash player, I can't seem to find a way to do this.

[CyanBlue]

Can you tell us why you don't see anything that can help you???

You can do this... (Of course, you will need to make that ActionScript...)

if (!_url.contains(your.domain.com))
{
// have your movie stop here
}

[billingsgate]

I think this is an interesting question. I am guessing that the question is how to disable the Flash Player in general after it's installed. It seems that the only solution is to distribute a self-running executable Flash Projector version of the content so that the Flash Player is never installed on any user's system. AND place the !_url script in the content. Otherwise, if the Flash Player is installed on a system, the only way to restrict it is to set up the network firewall to only allow local intranet connections to the Flash Player.

The other alternative is to let the employees play Flash games and movies online all they want and thus boost morale.

[JustMark]

Billings,

You're correct.

The issue has nothing to do with the content we'd be developing on the corporate network.

The issue is that once Flash is installed the employees can run flash content from sites outside the bank. Ideally we'd like flash installed but to have a restriction set within the client that specifies the hosts the employee can use Flash with.

I've looked through the latest documentation for all the administrative settings (auto-update, host to update from, etc.) but there isn't anything (that I can see) that allows me to make such a restriction.

A flash projector is certainly an option, but not as seamless as I would've liked.

[CyanBlue]

Hm... How about having your IT people block all the incoming SWF files except the Intranet so that the employees cannot have an access???
That's got to be the easiest way I can think of...

[billingsgate]

I have very little experience with firewalls, and none with large networks. But I do know that on my Windows PC, running ZoneAlarm, I can very easily restrict the Flash Player from accepting anything from the Internet, while allowing local connections, or it can be set to only accept connections from specific "trusted" sources. I would assume that any network firewall can do this. As far as I can tell, this is an easy and elegant network-wide solution to this issue.

Boy, they sure don't trust their employees, do they?