[Info-vax] A DCL wish list of sorts...

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2019-03-22 16:45:09 +0000, Dave Froble said:

> I can imagine that those writing system and utility level code make 
> some assumptions, such as "reasonable" users.

It's not just the folks writing system and utility code, we're well 
along and headed for everybody.  Well, everybody with an interesting 
network position, or with sensitive data, or financial data, or that's 
part of the supply chain of an interesting target.

> Try writing apps.  One learns quite quickly to trust nothing, and check 
> everything.  Nothing like a casual user to find ways to screw up just 
> about anything.  There was a phrase I used to know, went something like 
> "Why would you ever do that?", and the thing was, many times the user 
> had a perfectly valid reason for doing so.

As you state, "trust nothing".   That's been longstanding and good 
advice, though we're increasingly working with a better assumption; 
that the apps are or will be breached.   Striving for perfection hasn't 
worked all that well.  Hence software and hardware isolation (SGX, 
TrustZone, etc), encrypted storage, faster patch deployments and with 
automated patching, and with sandboxing and related techniques.


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