Re: [9fans] VMs, etc. (was: Re: security questions)

[blstuart@bellsouth.net]

> The seesion would not be suspended, it would continue to operate as
> your agent and identity and, typically, accept mail on your behalf,
> perform "background" operations such as pay your accounts and in
> general represent you to the web to the extent that security (or lack
> thereof, for many unsophisticated users) permits.  Nothing wrong with
> me having a private search bot to look for particular pornography or
> art or documentation while I'm asleep, the trick is to run it on
> whatever platform(s) are suitable at the time.

Okay, I think I have the picture now.  The idea of logging
in and out kind of goes out the window.  It gets replaced
by connecting, disconnecting, and migrating your online
alter ego.  So when I fire up a terminal, I'm don't announce
my presence, but instead pull the alter ego to whatever
machine I'm using at the moment.  Shutting down the
terminal would amount to pushing it back out into the
cloud.

>   The rest of the time, I
> find it preferable to use GPRS (3G is not yet available) for on-demand
> connections because I pay per volume and not for connect time.
> Naturally, that makes my network a roaming one.

And in cases like this, you basically remotely connect to
the "console" of your alter ego.

> Do you get my drift?

I think I've got a clearer picture than I had before.

> In passing, a device that struck me as being extremely handy is the
> 3G, USB dongle that is highly popular here, you mey be more familiar
> with it than I: it contains a simulated CD-ROM that it uses to install
> its software.  I though that was particularly clever, specially if you
> transform it into a Plan 9 or Inferno boot device.

That does sound cool.  The only 3G interface I've worked
with was PCMCIA and basically just looked like a modem.

> I'm sorry if I'm throwing around too many ideas with too little flesh,
> I must confess that I find this particular discussion very exciting, I
> have never really had occasion to look at these ideas as carefully as
> I am doing now.

I'm still inclined to think Inferno would make a good
starting point.  Suppose we have an Inferno configuration
without #U.  Now we move the whole Inferno instance
around.  Because apps don't have access to #U, state
information is pretty much confined to Styx connections
and resources managed by the Inferno kernel that gets
moved along with the running apps.  I'm sure that as
with any other approach to migration, there be dragons
there.  But as an initial line of thinking, it seems to be
a new model that's worth investigating.

BLS