can a Flash app running in browser connect to localhost to get data from another app?

Question

it seems that Flash was supposed to run in a sandbox in the browser. But, if Flash can get data from a remote server, can it similarly get data from localhost IP on the same machine? In other words, can I use a Windows app that provides a TCP socket on localhost to feed data into a Flash app?

EDITED:

ok, the answer is yes at least for the case of an SWF file hosted in the file system, see here http://www.flashsecrets.com/2008/01/security-sandbox-violation-w-localhost.html (turns out the localhost access error can be fixed if you add the SWF app to some security whitelist). Still wondering if this can also be done for SWF apps hosted on the network.

Answer 1

Yes it can be done. Two caveats:

• You must launch the server yourself (Flash's sandbox doesn't allow you to start the server)
• You must serve up a crossdomain policy file from the server