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Coyotos, A New Security-focused OS & Language

Posted by Hemos on from the locking-things-down dept.

wap writes "For those who haven't been following the EROS project, it has now migrated to the Coyotos project. EROS, the Extremely Reliable Operating System, was a project to create an operating system whose security relied on capabilities rather than the traditional Unix model of root or non-root. Capabilities allow a rigorous verification of the security of a system, something which is not possible in Unix-style and MS Windows systems. Coyotos is to be a real-world usable implementation of the ideas from EROS, complete with a Linux emulator layer. It also specifies a new language, called BitC which allows the programmer to prove that the code implements certain semantics, thus providing another layer of verifiable security. Could this be the most leet OS and language of 2005?" Another submittor asks how this stacks up against using Systems Management and "standard" OSes.

3 of 296 comments (clear)

  1. Re:It's a microkernel. by alnjmshntr · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    only on slashdot can a comment like Microkernels SUCK! get modded flamebait.

    --
    If I had created the world I wouldn't have messed about with butterflies and daffodils. I would have started with lasers
  2. So many good ideas never make it... by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    If it does not run POSIX or Windows programs I can't see anyone ever getting sufficiently motivated to ever use this for anything other than niche applications (eg. firewalls, secutiry equipment,...).

    Computer security is a low priority concern for most people. If you had a perfectly secure OS, but not the OS you want then people would not even turn the computers on and that would be secure, right?

    Secutiry is mainly a people thing anyway. Give 'em Linux and they'd just run everything as root.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
  3. Re:Need for a superuser? by dAzED1 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    apparently you've never heard of groups, ACL's, or sudo.