Meaning of Java.net.SocketPermission error when downloading an applet

Question

When downloading an applet on a remote client I see the following error message displayed in the Sun Java Console:

 java.security.policy: error adding Permission,java.net.SocketPermission:
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: invalid permission: *

The applet loads correctly. And when loaded from the server where the applet is hosted, this error does not appear. Does anyone know what it means? And do I need to worry about it?

Answer 1

This occurs if the user edits the java security policy file. The * parameter was allowed with Java 6, but has since been deprecated in Java 7. The error message indicates this. The solution is to remove the invalid syntax from the java security policy file.