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The problem I see with wasm as the sole basis for a secure app platform is that then a web browser can't be just another app on that platform, unless the perfor
by mwcampbell 5y ago
The problem I see with wasm as the sole basis for a secure app platform is that then a web browser can't be just another app on that platform, unless the performance of the browser's JS engine is hobbled or perhaps wasm gets some kind of JIT compilation support. So maybe the web browser engine needs to be the platform, as in Chromium OS, although even Chromium OS has now compromised that original purity with support for Android and desktop Linux VMs.
- api 5y agoUsing VMs like this means the VM itself becomes hard-core security-critical but if apps have stupid bugs their damage is quite limited. It also means you can mitigate things like Spectre or RowHammer by just tweaking how the VM JIT compiles bytecode into machine code. You don't have to update apps or even the kernel per se (though the latter would be a good idea).