5 ms·
> The all operate programs with the ambient authority of the user. Doesn't mean much when you have a buffer overflow in kernel.
by GoblinSlayer 17d ago
> The all operate programs with the ambient authority of the user.
Doesn't mean much when you have a buffer overflow in kernel.
- mikewarot 17d agoWhich is part of why Tanenbaum was right, and Linus Torvalds is dead wrong.[1] Eventually, we'll all be running Operating Systems designed on microkernels, which have been written by actual software engineers, and proven correct with formal methods. Until then, we're going to suffer through endless series of increasingly severe cybersecurity incidents. Computer Security is a solved problem, has been since the mid 1980s, secure proven microkernels, with almost all code in user space, capabilities based security, etc. have been just waiting to move into mainstream use. We can end this nightmare. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanenbaum%E2%80%93Torvalds_debate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanenbaum%E2%80%93Torvalds_deb...
- AnimalMuppet 17d agoEventually? I've seen more than forty years of OSes that "we're all running". Given past trends, your "eventually" we'll be after we're all dead. There isn't such a thing as you describe. There isn't a trend toward such a thing as you describe. What there is, is Windows 11, and Linux, and OSX. And when people complain that Windows 11 stinks, they're mostly complaining about the UI and the ads, not about the security or the lack of formal methods or the lack of a microkernel. The closest there is to what you're describing is SELinux. It's still a monolithic kernel. (Though I think it did use formal methods, but I'm not sure of that.) The only microkernel candidate that I know of is the Hurd, and it isn't what we're all running, and shows no sign of becoming so.