Capability Based Security[2] is what IBM and other Mainframe systems offer. When you have a job, in the setup, you specify exactly what resources and runtimes a

Capability Based Security[2] is what IBM and other Mainframe systems offer. When you have a job, in the setup, you specify exactly what resources and runtimes are to be made available, which virtual disks, etc. The code running in that constrained environment can't affect anything else. This is, effectively capability based security. It's the thing that didn't get built into Multics in time, and Unix made fun of ignoring. It's the same thing that Linus thought wasn't important at all, ignoring the advice of his teacher, Andrew Tannenbaum who was trying to teach him about microkernels, and why they were better[3]. In the PC world, we don't even have ECC memory in most desktops, etc. That's why Rowhammer[1] and all the other things like it work, because it's substandard RAM that we've grown to accept in the name of cost savings. We keep finding Ersatz versions of Capabilities, first in Virtualization such as VMware, then in Docker and containers, and now in WASM/WASI. We'll eventually learn the lesson, likely in 5-10 years now. If we can keep WASM from getting corrupted, it might make it. Sure, mainframes aren't cost competitive, because the cost of computing is no where near as important as the business it makes possible. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Row_hammer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Row_hammer [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability-based_security https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability-based_security [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanenbaum%E2%80%93Torvalds_debate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanenbaum%E2%80%93Torvalds_deb...