Thanks, I really appreciate the info. Sorry for my slow response, I hope you see this.
Building a pure capability-based operating system has minimal payoff.
Given the massive security problems we see today, if capabilities are the right solution (are they?), it seems like the payoff could be massive. It seems like "mass adoption" would be hard to achieve (except in the really long term), but it seems like it would be possible to find early adopters who "really really" need good security (e.g. certain military applications, maybe?).
At a higher level, in my opinion (as an amateur capability-based systems theorist) the benefits of distributed capability-based systems have already been realised as the shape of the evolving web, albeit on much cruder foundations than those designed as part of the literature.
This is extremely interesting. Reminds me of the idea behind the "separation kernel" which is supposed to mimic in software the security that can be achieved by connecting systems only over extremely well-defined channels (e.g., the systems are physically disconnected except for an ethernet port that is very well controlled). I can find a refence on security kernels if you're interested and not aware of them already.
Anyway, it does seem to me that there are lots of applications (e.g., embedded applications) where distributing everything over the Internet isn't really going to work (not that you're suggesting that). I'd really like to see people tackle security for this kind of system in an entirely new way. Maybe capabilities is part of that.
Building a pure capability-based operating system has minimal payoff.
Given the massive security problems we see today, if capabilities are the right solution (are they?), it seems like the payoff could be massive. It seems like "mass adoption" would be hard to achieve (except in the really long term), but it seems like it would be possible to find early adopters who "really really" need good security (e.g. certain military applications, maybe?).
At a higher level, in my opinion (as an amateur capability-based systems theorist) the benefits of distributed capability-based systems have already been realised as the shape of the evolving web, albeit on much cruder foundations than those designed as part of the literature.
This is extremely interesting. Reminds me of the idea behind the "separation kernel" which is supposed to mimic in software the security that can be achieved by connecting systems only over extremely well-defined channels (e.g., the systems are physically disconnected except for an ethernet port that is very well controlled). I can find a refence on security kernels if you're interested and not aware of them already.
Anyway, it does seem to me that there are lots of applications (e.g., embedded applications) where distributing everything over the Internet isn't really going to work (not that you're suggesting that). I'd really like to see people tackle security for this kind of system in an entirely new way. Maybe capabilities is part of that.