[Info-vax] What to do with my VAX.....

[Alexander Schreiber]

seasoned_geek <roland at logikalsolutions.com> wrote:
> On Saturday, October 17, 2020 at 9:10:35 AM UTC-5, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> ....now that VMS is going to be come persona non grata.
>> 
>> It has been decades, but, I used to work with an OS written by
>> Tannenbaum called Amoeba.  A couple of grad students did a thesis
>> project on it using Sparcstations and it was really impressive to
>> watch it run.  I had forgotten that it also ran on the VAX.  Might
>> be fun to put it on my stack of VAXStations and see what it might
>> do.
>> 
>> By the way, for those who think that VMS is the only real share
>> everything clustering system, Amoeba was really good about sharing.
>> Too bad, like so  many academic endeavors, people got bored with it
>> and it withered on the vine.  Like Plan9 and Inferno.
>> 
>> bill
>
>
> There is a growing need for an OS without any TCP/IP stack. *nix did it
> wrong.

Just for the record:
 - Unix was around before TCP/IP became a thing
 - as far back as the 90s there was at _least_ one Unix on the commercial
   market where the TCP/IP stack was an optional added product (Coherent)
 - Unix absolutely does not _require_ a TCP/IP stack, the systems usually
   just are more useful _with_ one

> There is absolutely no way of securing any system using *nix based
> TCP/IP when it is connected to the Internet.

That is, to say it politely, utter nonsense. Yes, securing a network service
is a non-trivial exercise, because it requires more than just grabbing
random code from the Internet, nailing it together and calling it done
(e.g. the NodeJs and friends approach). You need to actually understand
what your are trying to achieve, what you are doing, pay attention to
security starting at the design stage and be competent. If you can't
measure up to this, you have no business building network services.

That is entirely doable and being demonstrated on a daily basis.

> Lots of places dusting off
> old proprietary protocols for internal networks, putting one or two
> sacrificial machines out on the Internet and only installing/allowing
> the proprietary protocol between them and the internal network.

Well, there are clueless idiots in charge everywhere:
 - Shannons Maxim applies ("The enemy knows the system.")
 - proprietary protocols means fewer people have looked at the design
   and implementation, it's less widely used, less stress tested and
   most likely has bugs that more commonly used services fixed ages
   ago

Those places might now be safe from the stereotypical clueless teenager
in his Moms basement that only knows how to click the "Haxx0r it!" button,
but they do make inviting targets for the kind of people who enjoy solving
weird puzzles, thus attracting a more competent crowd of attackers.

Kind regards,
           Alex.
-- 
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
 looks like work."                                      -- Thomas A. Edison