Re: How To Abandon Microsoft

Mxsmanic <mxsmanic@gmail.com> writes:
> Being lean does not make an OS secure, although it often makes it
> easier to _verify_ that an OS is securely _configured_.
>
> For example, in UNIX, if a server is being used for a few specific
> purposes, it's usually easy to figure out exactly what openings there
> are into the machine from the network, and secure them. Windows has a
> lot of undocumented network openings that must be found and closed to
> lock down the machine.

succinct & KISS may not only make it easier to verify but also
contribute to higher integrity implementations.

as an undergraudate, i gave presentation on the subject at a mainframe
user group meeting in aug68 held in boston. technology was widely used
on secure mainframe deployments in the 60s & 70s.

there have been some number of conferences over the past year
speculating that security for current environments might have to wait
on widespread deployment of the same technology (back to the future).

random sprinkling of misc. references mentioning the issue
http://therealadam.com/weblog/archives/2005/01/09/virtualization-as-security-savior/
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2004/112204ecbriefs.html
http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/11/15/HNamdvirtual_1.html
http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/08/22/34TCvmware_1.html
http://castlecops.com/article-6242-nested-0-0.html
http://storage.itworld.com/4620/050804emcceo/
http://www.hp.com/products1/unix/operating/sep05.html
http://www.intel.com/technology/computing/vptech/
http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,36574,00.html
http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3462351
http://www.securitypark.co.uk/article.asp?articleid=24207&CategoryID=11
http://www.virtual-strategy.com/article/articleview/1130/1/6/
http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=21676&tstart=0
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20040908094339.html
http://www.softricity.com/news/webinar-archive.asp?eventID=coresecurity
http://www.veritest.com/services/virtualization.asp
http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardwarecentral/reports/5798/1/

you can get a lot more hits by using terms security, virtualization

old past with small part of the aug68 presentation ... mostly about
significant thruput performance I had obtained by rewritting major
portions of the kernel over the previous couple months (vendor was
picking up the changes and turning around and shipping in standard
product).
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#18

back in the old days of free software ... before the transition for
charging ... misc. postings on some of the transitions from the old
days of free software and the age of charging for software
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#unbundle

-- 
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/