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From: darrell@sdcsvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.os.research
Subject: Re: Security in OS design
Message-ID: <3209@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU>
Date: Fri, 22-May-87 08:01:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcsvax.3209
Posted: Fri May 22 08:01:12 1987
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In article <3205@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU> darrell@beowulf.ucsd.edu writes:
>A subject that I have been wondering about for sometime is OS security.  What
>are the necessary conditions for building a secure OS?  Has anyone studied
>this in detail at the implementation level?
>

Um, Mr. Long, have you been living under a rock? ;-)

[ No, just trying to provoke discussion.  Besides, considering how easy UNIX ]
[ is to crack (especially System V), it appears that no one is paying much   ]
[ attention to this extensive body of research.  Most operating systems that ]
[ I know of (research and production) are very easy to crack.  Why is all of ]
[ the research Mr. Margulies mentions being ignored? --DL		     ]

There are a couple of conferences a year on this. IFIP has one, for
example. If you get the proceedings of IFIP/Sec'85, you will even see
a paper by me. Which is about as rare an avis as there is.

The research here goes back to the early seventies.

For theoretical foundations, start with Bell and LaPadula.

    Bell, D.E. and LaPadula, L.J.
    Secure Computer Systems: Unified Exposition and Multics
Interpretation, MTR-2997, Rev 1, MITRE Corp, Bedford MA, March 1976.

For practical rules, "Department of Defense Trusted Computer System
Evaluation Criteria" CSC-STD-001-83. The bibliography at the back of
this is quite extensive.


Benson I. Margulies                         Kendall Square Research Corp.
harvard!ksr!benson			    All comments the responsibility
ksr!benson@harvard.harvard.edu		    of the author, if anyone.