Re: [9fans] Using the Acme Editor

[Geoffrey Avila <avlg@sdsc.edu>]

Not (currently) a Plan 9 user, but I gotta chime in:

> It seems the security ascribed to disposable machines comes from that "user
> data" is stored on a different, presumably safer, machine in, for example,
> some sort of data warehouse at a data center. This isn't a new
> idea--actually, it's _very_ old--and it's not what happens in home (or
> personal) computing.

You're right; it isn't. Is that good or bad? What about in an office
environment? Same answer there?

>> Plan 9 respects that. Not trusting the hostowner is a waste of effort.
>
> Not with reliable biometric authentication, but that's out of scope here.
>

Way, way out of scope. Kinda like a fusion-powered terminal.

>
> Now, your home computer may be a true single user machine but you store
> _some_ authentication information on it anyway; those of yours, namely. Such
> machine is in that respect as vulnerable as a UNIX machine. It has to be
> _physically_ guarded. It's no more a "disposable" machine.

This is the argument I had for using Sunrays in public places at work.
Single user, and if they were ganked from the lobby one night, the theives
would only have a middling LCD monitor instead of a windows system with
cached credentials.

>
> This is classic. Complication is a sign of maturation.

...or incipient schizophrenia.

> by not maturing, by avoiding diversification. Before you get angry I must say
> that's my "personal" opinion. Nothing I'm going to "force" unto you. Nothing
> I _can_ force unto you.


Would that I could force you into not using double-quotes for emphasis!

-GBA