Slashdot Mirror
Indian Military Organization To Develop Its Own OS
An anonymous reader writes "Several newspapers have reported that DRDO (the defence R&D organization of the Indian military) is planning to create an OS. The need for this arose due to the cyber security concerns facing India and that all [conventional] operating systems are made outside India. About 50 professionals in Bangalore and New Delhi are expected to start work on this operating system." At least one of the linked articles says the new OS, though home-grown, would run Windows software.
It was Ken Thompson, the man himself, that you're referring to. The talk in question can be found here: http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html
You're talking about the trusting trust attack, which was made famous by Ken Thompson.
Thankfully, you can counter the "trusting trust" attack using a technique called "Diverse Double-Compiling" (DDC). See the linked PhD dissertation for details.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
The trouble with Windows [compatible] OSes is not that it should be capable of running software written for Windows. It is that Windows itself has design weaknesses for various reasons not the least of which are related to its DOS based origins and support for old, misbehaving "legacy" software. To write a Windows compatible OS, you would also have to mimic a wide range of idiosyncratic behaviors in order to support Windows applications.
Now, if for some reason, all the bad-behaving software were cast aside and only good Windows software were used, the notion might stand a chance. I remain quite skeptical it, or any Windows-compatible OS, would become completely viable.
Looking at it another way, the SaMBa project is constantly playing catch-up against the moving target that is Windows networking. And that is just one aspect of the Windows OS family. Imagine this on an entire OS? It would be hard pressed to actually work.
They'd be better off making a BSD modified OS and pulling in WINE.
As someone who knows a bit about the origins of NT, with regard to Windows NT, you are full that substance that leads to substantial growth in the business...
...". Eventually OS2LDR.exe got renamed, but it remained the same through at least the first release (I left Micrografx before the next release of Windows NT came out). In the end, Windows NT was more secure than it was when it started, but it was not "secure".
Windows NT first several beta's booted using the OS2LDR.EXE file from prerelease versions of OS/2 2.0. The first thing you saw on the console was "OS2LDR.EXE
Windows NT was not designed for security -- The first version was hacked together using bits of OS/2 2.0 code, ports of existing Windows code, etc. For the record, I worked at Micrografx when they (a) had source code and early binaries of Windows NT, and (b) was part of the team that worked on OS/2.
With regard to your spurious example implying ACLs make something secure, again, you've been shoveling out the stables. ACLs do not make something secure (they may contribute to a security solution) and the lack of ACLs does not make something insecure. Security is not about how you achieve something, security is about what is achieved. Fundamentally, the only truly secure computer is one that not connected to a network, kept behind several locked doors, with guards that are so well paid or loyal such that they cannot be bribed. This goes on and on, no software added after security is certified, no external access other than keyboard, no externally accessible disk drives/cdrom/usb, etc. Everything else is a careful balancing act of risk, vulnerabilities, and mitigation.