[2756] in WWW Security List Archive
Re: UNIX in Perspective (was: Re: DOS and Macro Virus Discussion)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bob Hardin (eLeCTRo))
Thu Aug 22 03:01:50 1996
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 1996 08:08:09 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Bob Hardin (eLeCTRo)" <electro@newwave.net>
To: Fisher Mark <FisherM@is3.indy.tce.com>
cc: "'Hallam-Baker Phillip M.'" <hallam@ai.mit.edu>,
"'www-security'" <www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu>
In-Reply-To: <3219DC6F@MSMAIL.INDY.TCE.COM>
Errors-To: owner-www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu
Preach on Mark..... Im 17 and I admin for NewWave internet ive used SOME
sort of UNIX OS sence I was 12. Unix is something MICRO$OFT CAN NEVER
TOUCH. Mainly beacouse bill cant use anything but a gui ;)
On Tue, 20 Aug 1996, Fisher Mark wrote:
>
> Phill, I don't want to get into a flame war with you -- I have way too much
> respect for your technical competence. However, permit me to violently
> agree with you...
>
> >But MSDOS is not alone in this. UNIX has failed to develop significantly
> >so far as the user interface is concerned since 1970. It is still based
> >on a smug and complacent happy hacker attitude in which it is the
> >responsibility of the user to adapt to the machine, where to expect the
> >machine to be documented is to be a looser. In fact the more obscure
> >the O/S is the happier the elite are - it protects their status and
> >power. Like MVS, UNIX represented job security for tens of thousands
> >of sysops to whom it gave power over lesser mortals.
>
> UNIX was developed by programmers, for programmers, to make good use of the
> few available machine resources (speaking as a UNIX user since the Version 6
> days (1978)). At that time for most of us, multiuser TTY access at 9600
> baud was close to the state of the art. 256K was regarded as a pretty
> sizeable machine memory size. Given these constraints, UNIX performed its
> job admirably. Much of the kernel API paradigm survives to this day,
> because they got it right on the issues they covered. Even today, there are
> times that a powerful textual-command shell can be of enormous help; I keep
> a Korn Shell (courtesy of MKS) up on my NT desktop continuously. Those days
> really did require separate system administrators for computers, as
> computers were just too expensive to dedicate to individual users.
>
> Some issues not covered by the original UNIX design:
> * Threads -- Although most current versions incorporate adequate support.
> * Security -- UNIX required a ground-up rewrite of the kernel to incorporate
> security properly. (This rewrite is called Windows NT :). As UNIX was
> developed in a near-academic environment, security (apart from not stepping
> on each other's files) was seen as a hindrance to information sharing.
> Obviously, the computing philosophy of security has advanced since then.
> * Reliability -- I may be mistaken, but the great advances in mainframe
> reliability occurred during the same period that UNIX was under initial
> development. Again, a complete rewrite of the kernel would be required.
> Probably the kernel API would then only need a very few changes, as
> reliability should be transparent to the user and the programmer.
> * Graphical User Interface -- GUIs were experimental during the early UNIX
> development period. The main fault UNIX systems now have is the lack of
> adequate GUI system administration tools, which is perhaps a limit of the
> UNIX culture -- it is certainly not a technical limitation, as there is no
> reason that a UNIX system could not be completely graphically administered.
> * Networking -- The lower level (socket C API) survives to this day, even in
> Windows and Windows NT. We are all still figuring out what the higher
> levels need to look like.
> * Documentation -- UNIX documentation (like the UNIX kernel and shell) was
> written by programmers for programmers. Generally, I have found UNIX
> systems to be much better documented (at the programmer's level) than MS-DOS
> and Windows systems, which require the purchase of multiple "*Secrets*"
> books just to get the systems to perform the simplest tasks! To answer
> _your_ point, UNIX system documentation for non-programmers still leaves a
> great amount to be desired even at this late date.
>
> Although I have certainly run into system administrators who would be best
> suited to running otherwise unattended computer rooms in the Antarctic, most
> of us try our best to supply our users with the computing resources they
> need to do their jobs. Unfortunately, no matter what the profession, a few
> will regard it as a badge of honor to bamboozle their customers by hiding
> behind a wall of jargon in order to keep the profession pure.
>
> UNIX was written by programmers for programmers -- but that is not the
> majority of computer users now. Unfortunately, the major UNIX vendors have
> not been willing to commit the resources to move to UNIX++ or VOJY :). From
> my perspective, it may yet be that Windows NT will be the rightful heir to
> UNIX, as it incorporates the good points of UNIX with the more modern
> computing paradigms of effective but not annoying security, reasonable
> reliability, and the graphical user interface. Because of UNIX's power,
> which (at the this stage of computer science) comes at the cost of
> complexity, a priesthood was able to grow up under UNIX. This is not the
> fault of UNIX -- it is the fault of modern computing science, which still
> produces systems that are just too hard to use!
> </rant>
>
> We now return you to your regularly scheduled Web security issues
> discussion, already in progress...
> ======================================================================
> Mark Leighton Fisher Thomson Consumer Electronics
> fisherm@indy.tce.com Indianapolis, IN
>
