Macromedia’s hidden back-door in Flash
I poised this question yesterday and got a response from Macromedia…..
MARC:
“Oh BTW - what’s the story with this hidden backdoor in the flash player - that only Macromedia gets to use?”
ANSWER:
What “backdoor”?
How can others see what you’re seeing?
John Dowdell
Macromedia Support
Dear John,
It is a well known fact among insiders that Macromedia has built an undocumented back-door into Flash. This back-door allows for ‘instant’ upgrade to the Flash player and other things - that aren’t as clear.
One thing we know FOR SURE is that Macromedia has improved audio features - improved quality of audio - that they’re not letting out to others.
This along with Macromedia’s really warm, positive approach to their FlashCom developers - who are now directly competing with Breeze - makes for a typical Macromedia kind of relationshiup - Breezey at best.
I believe the bakcdoor is called ‘lightening’ or something like that.
Perhaps they haven’t even told YOU about it - John - what can I say. It;s there alright. That wouldn’t surprise me a bit.
April 10th, 2005 at 10:59 am
Yes, recent versions of the Macromedia Flash Player do include an optional auto-update mechanism. You can read about it at the first address, and control it at the second:
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/flash/articles/mx2004_04.html
http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager05.html
Calling this an “undocumented backdoor” seems strange.
For your “audio” assertion, what, specifically, are you talking about?
(It would be better to document and then assert, rather than the other way around, thanks.)
John Dowdell
Macromedia Support