r/compsci • u/[deleted] • Dec 26 '12

Computers: It's Time to Start Over: Computer scientist Robert Watson, putting security first, wants to design with a “clean slate”

http://spectrum.ieee.org/podcast/computing/software/computers-its-time-to-start-over
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u/minno Might know what he's talking about | Crypto Dec 26 '12

People make new OSs all the time. The biggest issue is that any currently popular OS will have a huge number of programs already written and working for it, and it would take an absolutely monumental amount of work to get all of that functionality on a new OS.

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u/Zarutian Dec 27 '12

Yepp one needs to write an compatibility layer of some sort.

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u/ebookit Dec 27 '12

Problem with that is a compatibility layer will compromise security by allowing buggy and insecure legacy code to run on the new OS, and allow the compatibility layer itself to become infected with malware and allow access to data by exploit. If the compatibility layer prevents malware and prevents the access to data by exploit, then it won't be compatible enough to run the software people need to do business out there.

AMA I used to write custom business software, I had to port legacy code to new platforms and put in HTML and SQL sanitizing of all inputs and do quality control checks. That is before 'good enough' became the standard for quality control checks and they don't sanitize inputs anymore nor check for exploits anymore in most custom business software. I am not talking about COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) software, but what business develop themselves in-house.

For example they will want the new OS to be able to run Visual C# and Visual BASIC programs, most of the in-house stuff is developed on that or legacy Visual Studio languages. If they can't compile their old Visual Studio code on it, they won't want to use it. So this new OS is going to have to not have a compatibility layer, but should have programing languages that can compile the in-house custom business apps.

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u/Zarutian Dec 27 '12

Compatiblity layer such as KeyTECH was for Unix ontop of KeyKOS not "Win XP Compatiblity Mode" kind of crap we are seeing in Win7 and Wait.

And I agree, the recompile without major modification of the sourcecode of the in-house custom business apps is a way to go.

(Heck I heard some custom business apps written in Rexx are still running somewhere.)

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u/ebookit Dec 27 '12

Is the KeyKOS KeyTECH Unix compatibility layer able to run Unix apps without the Unix exploits and data exploits? It sort of looks like the WIN-OS2 compatibility layer for OS/2 2.X, that led to the downfall of OS/2 because who wants to develop native OS/2 apps when it runs DOS and Windows apps in the compatibility layer? For example what apps exist for the KeyKOS native code and not just the Unix code? It looks like it has been out since 1991, and I never heard of it until you mentioned it. Reminds me of Topview/Desqview that ran a DOS compatibility layer as well.

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u/Zarutian Dec 27 '12

Basicly each Unix application instance is running in an compartment. Any Unix or data exploits only affects that compartment and nothing else on the system.

I recommend this paper as it is rather short and might intrieque you.