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>If anything, NAT has saved millions of wildly insecure devices running unpatched old Windows versions from getting pwned the second they connect to the open in

>If anything, NAT has saved millions of wildly insecure devices running unpatched old Windows versions from getting pwned the second they connect to the open internet. This might not be a good thing. Perhaps if there had been no protection for those odious operating systems, they'd have died the horrible deaths they earned decades ago. We should only want to protect things we intend to keep, after all, and none of us wanted to keep that garbage.

mikewarot 1mo ago
All of the current OS choices are insecure by design. The all operate programs with the ambient authority of the user. While this was fine for the corporate world of AT&T in the 1970s, and the classroom in the 1980s, it's insane to use it in the era of ubiquitous persistent megabit Internet connectivity, and mobile code. I know of zero systems that can survive exposure to the raw Internet, unpatched and without administrative oversight, with uptimes of years.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 1mo ago
  >I know of zero systems that can survive exposure to the raw Internet Sure. And as long as nothing has to survive exposure to the raw Internet, no one will build anything that could survive it. Not sure why that's so difficult to understand. You seem to think that the protection is the reaction to dangerous operating systems, when it's the cause.
- GoblinSlayer 1mo ago
  > The all operate programs with the ambient authority of the user. Doesn't mean much when you have a buffer overflow in kernel.
  - mikewarot 29d ago
    Which is part of why Tanenbaum was right, and Linus Torvalds is dead wrong.[1] Eventually, we'll all be running Operating Systems designed on microkernels, which have been written by actual software engineers, and proven correct with formal methods. Until then, we're going to suffer through endless series of increasingly severe cybersecurity incidents. Computer Security is a solved problem, has been since the mid 1980s, secure proven microkernels, with almost all code in user space, capabilities based security, etc. have been just waiting to move into mainstream use. We can end this nightmare. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanenbaum%E2%80%93Torvalds_debate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanenbaum%E2%80%93Torvalds_deb...
    - AnimalMuppet 29d ago
      Eventually? I've seen more than forty years of OSes that "we're all running". Given past trends, your "eventually" we'll be after we're all dead. There isn't such a thing as you describe. There isn't a trend toward such a thing as you describe. What there is, is Windows 11, and Linux, and OSX. And when people complain that Windows 11 stinks, they're mostly complaining about the UI and the ads, not about the security or the lack of formal methods or the lack of a microkernel. The closest there is to what you're describing is SELinux. It's still a monolithic kernel. (Though I think it did use formal methods, but I'm not sure of that.) The only microkernel candidate that I know of is the Hurd, and it isn't what we're all running, and shows no sign of becoming so.

mikewarot 1mo ago

All of the current OS choices are insecure by design. The all operate programs with the ambient authority of the user. While this was fine for the corporate world of AT&T in the 1970s, and the classroom in the 1980s, it's insane to use it in the era of ubiquitous persistent megabit Internet connectivity, and mobile code. I know of zero systems that can survive exposure to the raw Internet, unpatched and without administrative oversight, with uptimes of years.

NoMoreNicksLeft 1mo ago
>I know of zero systems that can survive exposure to the raw Internet Sure. And as long as nothing has to survive exposure to the raw Internet, no one will build anything that could survive it. Not sure why that's so difficult to understand. You seem to think that the protection is the reaction to dangerous operating systems, when it's the cause.
GoblinSlayer 1mo ago
> The all operate programs with the ambient authority of the user. Doesn't mean much when you have a buffer overflow in kernel.
- mikewarot 29d ago
  Which is part of why Tanenbaum was right, and Linus Torvalds is dead wrong.[1] Eventually, we'll all be running Operating Systems designed on microkernels, which have been written by actual software engineers, and proven correct with formal methods. Until then, we're going to suffer through endless series of increasingly severe cybersecurity incidents. Computer Security is a solved problem, has been since the mid 1980s, secure proven microkernels, with almost all code in user space, capabilities based security, etc. have been just waiting to move into mainstream use. We can end this nightmare. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanenbaum%E2%80%93Torvalds_debate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanenbaum%E2%80%93Torvalds_deb...
  - AnimalMuppet 29d ago
    Eventually? I've seen more than forty years of OSes that "we're all running". Given past trends, your "eventually" we'll be after we're all dead. There isn't such a thing as you describe. There isn't a trend toward such a thing as you describe. What there is, is Windows 11, and Linux, and OSX. And when people complain that Windows 11 stinks, they're mostly complaining about the UI and the ads, not about the security or the lack of formal methods or the lack of a microkernel. The closest there is to what you're describing is SELinux. It's still a monolithic kernel. (Though I think it did use formal methods, but I'm not sure of that.) The only microkernel candidate that I know of is the Hurd, and it isn't what we're all running, and shows no sign of becoming so.