Re: Ada Operating System

["Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org>]

O.K. Try re-reading what I wrote and see if I said anything about buffer
overflow or automatic error checking in the part you quote. I'd guess you
just jumped on what you *thought* I said rather than what I *did* say. :-)

What I was suggesting there is that there *might* be some interest on the
part of some users to have some really tight security around all the
possible external gateways within a computer. Some version of firing up a
third-party application that might be making use of the Ethernet to connect
to ports/addresses behind your back and blip data in either direction
without your knowledge. If the OS is doing a good job of monitoring this and
presenting it in an easily interpreted manner such that you can tell that
Bill Gates is attempting to watch you through your use of "Outlook" or
"Explorer", that might have an interest to some people. Being able to block
it might be even more interesting.

I'm not saying you can't do some of that with existing operating systems or
third party security apps. What I'm saying is that an extensive capability
in this area that was inherent in the OS and difficult/impossible to
circumvent might just be a feature that would make such an OS attractive by
offering something new/different/better than what you can get elsewhere.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Hyman Rosen" <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote in message
news:3C8B0191.3080705@mail.com...
> Marin David Condic wrote:
> > What about "privacy"? Would it be useful if the OS gave you a guarantee
> > that some app you have can't be blipping your data to some unknown
source or
> > accessing websites without your knowledge/permission?
>
> I'm afraid your love for Ada has blinded you to the fact that not
> all software errors are because of buffer overflow. Many of the
> errors and vulnerabilities that show up these days are "cross-
> scripting" errors and the like, where programs execute externally
> submitted scripting code because they fail to properly validate
> inputs. This is purely an error of program logic - no automated
> language checking is going to catch this.
>