Non-Technical Influences on the Design of the Java Security Architecture Li Gong Sun Microsystems This talk discusses significant considerations given to non-technical factors during the design of JDK 1.2, when an entirely new security architecture now used in all the Java platforms was introduced. The design process was necessarily open, given the nature of Java, with a wide variety of participants. Security was contentious then, as now, and was a highly visible point of competition among Microsoft, Netscape, and Sun. The talk intends to bring back the audience to around 1996 to 1998, and review significant events that represent attempts, by people both inside and outside of Sun, to influence the design of the Java security architecture. Some of these attempts succeeded, most failed. The talk will analyze the motivations for these attempts, whether they were economical, political, or otherwise, and why they succeeded or failed.