4.1 Security Considerations for Implementers
Allowing the use of native information levels and file system controls by a protocol could unintentionally grant access to a wider range of functionality than the protocol author intended. Developers who choose to take advantage of these common structures in a generic format can protect their applications appropriately by blocking both the levels that they do not want to support and the levels that they do not expect.
For example, the protocol could verify that the provided level is within the range of levels that existed at the time of protocol design and development before the protocol performs any further processing. The latter is significant if the underlying file system might be upgraded to support new functionality that was not there when the protocol was initially implemented.