Legally enforced runtimes and Linux
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| phsolide May 12, 2009 8:35 AM EDT |
I applaud you putting this article up for examination. The secondary ("unforseen") consequences of DRM and other proposed laws need examination. While it's pretty clear that MSFT is sucking up to to the MPAA and RIAA, the consequences of legally-mandated DRM (or whatever, could be legally mandated user identification, or like HADOPI, non-software enforced copyright restrictions) seem to me to ALWAYS eliminate open source, or at least Linux. And that really bothers me, for an economic reason. Such laws impose top-down restrictions on invention/innovation. That is, if you don't conform to The Law, you can't run your new web service/web site/whatever. Such laws seem expressly designed to freeze the use of computer technology to what was available in 1995, plus a few things like better typesetting. Major market forces remain major market forces, no upstarts can displace them. What are they thinking? Virtually every innovation in computing has come from the bottom, from the World Wide Web itself, to viruses to PPP to TCP/IP (MSFT backed "NetBUI" as I recall, while DEC backed the OSI standards) to web rating services, to blogs to ICQ to you-name-it. Top-down "innovation" always (without an exception I can recall) turns into a nightmarish swamp of regulation, red tape and expensive failure. |
| jacog May 12, 2009 9:27 AM EDT |
So unconfuse me - if Windows suddenly became a malware-proof, fully secure operating system, it would jeopardise Microsoft's ability to use this sort of bollocks to leverage their anti-competitive practises? |
| phsolide May 12, 2009 11:19 AM EDT |
I'm not sure I understand: according to Fred Cohen's original computer virus paper (http://all.net/books/virus/index.html) computers that are sufficiently powerful will also possess the ability to run or host computer viruses. These are classic, file-infecting viruses, if I read the paper correctly. So: MSFT can't make windows "malware proof". But like in any kind of practical epidemiology, they could do things to raise the barrier to epidemics. A less baroque, more documented system call interface would help. They should probably just junk the native NT and Win32 APIs and start over. A custom of separation of privileges would also help. True multi-user capability, and reorganize and make orthogonal their permissions and file naming (which they linked by making "exe" file extensions make the file executable). And yes, if MSFT made WIndows a more basically secure system, instead of spackling over a foundation of sand with things like ASLR & etc. it would reduce their ability to leverage anti-competitive things like anti-virus. In 1996, I remember some Windows 3.11 users bemoaning the fact that the Anti-Virus Companies no longer supported Windows 3.11: the plague of malware that grew around Windows 3.11 even after the release of Windows 95 forced them to move to Win95. Once Norton, Symantec, F-Secure, MacAfee, etc abruptly moved to Windows 95, the Windows 3.11 users were left without protection. Viruses for Win3.11 written after AV support for Win3.11 got dropped really did them in. I really only mentioned viruses (and worms, Nov 1988!) as a Unix/free software invention as a form of humor. It always seems to me that the stuff that MSFT appropriated as their own, from The Internet to WWW, got its start as some kind of free software. Mosaic was available for X11 long before it was available for Windows 3.11, the first web browser ran under NeXTStep, Fred Cohen wrote some of the first viruses under 4.xBSD, and RTM wrote the first computer worm for SunOS and Vaxes running 4BSD. The TCP/IP based Internet started on BSD - Windows is a latecomer |
| gus3 May 12, 2009 11:28 AM EDT |
Quoting:if Windows suddenly became a malware-proof, fully secure operating systemOh, you mean like that Sooper Sekure Windows Eks Pee that they developed for the US Air Force? /sarcasm Of course, if they have now proven that they can develop a properly-secureable OS, the next question becomes, why didn't they do that in the first place, rather than foisting onto the public a product with known, dangerous design defects? /not-sarcasm |
| jacog May 12, 2009 11:28 AM EDT |
The problem with legislation-backed software, is that the world has many countries, all with their own laws. This sort of thing will make some software illegal in some countries, a bit like some non-free media codecs work now. |
| jacog May 12, 2009 11:31 AM EDT |
Gus, it's control by fear. Switching to a new operating system would seem like a hassle to some, so there are folks who keep hanging on to the promise that the next version of Windows will solve all their problems. |
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