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From: pnm@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Paul BIG-EARS Menon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: System 7.0, Strike one, two....
Message-ID: <5887@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au>
Date: 22 May 91 05:04:51 GMT
Article-I.D.: goanna.5887
References: <5878@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au> <1991May22.011214.10977@midway.uchicago.edu>
Organization: Comp Sci, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia
Lines: 75

In article <1991May22.011214.10977@midway.uchicago.edu>, dwal@ellis.uchicago.edu (David Walton) writes:
...
> simply hang instead of showing a bomb.  This could be wrong; I only
> heard part of the response.  Perhaps somebody who was also at the
> System software feedback session at the Developer's Conference can
> correct me.
> 
> BTW, virus problems, in contrast, ARE easily obviated.  It's called
> GateKeeper.  Or Disinfectant.  We've been using GK/GKA in our public
> clusters for some time now, and have had almost no problems with
> viruses.  Using removable media is an innovative solution to the
> problem, but I simply won't buy that it's the only effective way to
> guard against viruses.

I'm not sure what sort of users you have, but GateKeeper does not stand
up to an intentional (or unintentional) hostile user, ie, one who goes out of 
his/her way to wreak misery upon subsequent users of a Mac with a hard disk.
There is no way to protect others from malicious users apart from giving them
the responsibility of their own media.  Unless they are dorks, they will
not rearrange the face of a disk if it means they're the only ones who will
suffer.  I'm not only talking about virii here, rearranging/deleting setup 
files etc (customising) on a HD just to satisfy one user makes life tough for
another.  GateKeeper does not stop this.  Yes, there are ways to circumvent 
most "protectors of the peace".  What we are hoping for is to have a "library"
of removable media for loan (basically System disks with swap), which get 
"sterilised" upon return (ie - re-format, or overwrite the whole disk from a 
master).  The "borrowers" (students) can do what they like while they have the 
cartridge, customise it, whatever.  They use floppies (or file servers) for 
their own data.  Applications are on File Servers or on the disk.  The beauty 
of this scheme is that they can count on it being CLEAN, and identical to 
previously borrowed "books".  No scribble marks, no graffiti, no terminal 
diseases - guaranteed! No other mechanism can guarantee this right now!
The keyword here is...
			"GUARANTEE"
I'd love to be proved wrong here, so please respond if you have any leads...
Please note that System 7 cannot be run effectively on a floppy, so a
R/W hard disk is necessary.  Let's not talk about Etherware (AppleShare 3.0)
yet, as I've said before, we don't want to be totally dependent on file 
servers either (connectivity, not dependency).  Besides, I'd love to see
how Apple would respond to having swap on a file server if they don't want it
on a removable cartridge |;-)...


> For you, perhaps.  I've been waiting for 1) Dynamic Apple menu; 2)
> Aliases; 3) BetterFinder (tm); 4) File sharing; and 5) TrueType.  In
> that order.  From a programming standpoint, the most important things
> to me were the Edition Manager and all the neato IAC stuff.  I do use
> Virtual Memory, and I'm disappointed that MacTCP isn't compatible with
> it (although I'm still using both and I've yet to see a crash).  But I
> also think that if Apple had waited for every single one of their
> drivers to be compatible with 7.0 before shipping it, the whole market
> might have migrated to Windows 6.2 on 786 machines by the time it came
> out.  :-)

The features you mention are certainly major achievements, perhaps I take too
much for granted.  But it's still a bit disappointing to find out that I
can't jump in straight away into a VM and 32 bit clean mode primarily because
of Apple products.  Apple certainly took full licence in their advertising
when announcing it, VM, 32 bits, the works.

We have stuck to an informal policy of purchasing Apple products (SW & HW) 
simply because we thought these would be the 'safest' in times of (r)evolution.
Not always the case.  We would have also purchased Apple removable drives 
(if they made them).


    Paul Menon,
    Dept of Computer Science,
    Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, 
    124 Latrobe Street,
    Melbourne 3001, 
    Victoria, Australia.

pnm@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au
PH:	+61 3 660 3209