[9fans] security [was Plan 9 versus CORBA?]

[Eric Grosse <ehg@research.bell-labs.com>]

> From: Dan Cross <cross@math.psu.edu>
> Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 22:27:27 -0400 (EDT)
> ...
> A lot of people who are putting in, eg, end-to-end
> crypto are doing so ``temporarily'' until the problems with the
> wireless LAN are ``fixed.''
> What's really needed is a holistic approach, ...
> But, good luck selling that one.  :-(

But Plan 9 is deliberately a research system, where we have a chance
to do it right and live in the system we build.

We're working to evolve Plan 9 so all services and protocols are
sturdy enough to withstand life outside firewalls.  We don't want to
depend on WEP but on end-to-end authentication and encryption where
needed.

Besides the upgrades in explicit security mechanisms for Plan 9,
we still find and fix buffer overflows occasionally.  But there
are only a few people to work on this at Bell Labs, so I appeal to
the open source community to apply eyeballs and insight.

Eric