[ale] What are your thoughts on system transparency?

[Leam Hall]

Well, let's take Ed and Steve's notes together.

What I would like to see, though I don't have the brains to do it myself, is a secure OS (written in Rust?  https://os.phil-opp.com/ ) with a Linux-ish ABI. That lets a lot of existing software easier to port over, but with increased security. Steve brings up a good point that I haven't given a lot of thought to, and that's increased visibility. So let's design the OS with that in mind.

Then the issue becomes all of the other stuff. The OS is different than the distribution, and we need to build the OS culture to have the same level of security and visibility for all the other software that goes on it. Of course, we also need to look at the stuff *under* the OS, there seems to be a lot of hardware and driver options for vulnerabilities.

A more transparent and secure system is greatly needed, but I'm not aware of a community that is doing it.

Leam


On 2/28/24 05:22, Ed Cashin via Ale wrote:
> Yes, I think that pain drives change.  High-profile attacks on important
> computer systems are making more people understand that complex dependency
> chains that nobody can audit is highly problematic.  (A real audit is often
> possible but impractical because of system complexity.)
> 
> There certainly appears to be a window of opportunity starting to appear
> for a charismatic leader or movement to introduce an alternative that is
> transparent and simple enough to audit.  I don't know whether anything will
> take advantage of that opportunity.  The pain would have to be great enough
> to spur people to abandon current behavior, and the solution would have to
> be attractive enough.
> 
> 
> On Tue, Feb 27, 2024 at 10:18 PM Steve Litt via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:
> 
>> Leam Hall via Ale said on Tue, 27 Feb 2024 13:54:21 -0600
>>
>>> While I personally like it, a lot of sysadmin jobs are going away.
>>> It's easy to click a few buttons and spin up a new cloud instance. Why
>>> trouble-shoot something when you can just destroy it and start over?
>>
>> I see your point. Why waste time. The only thing is, what if you spin
>> up your new cloud instance and get the same symptom? Nowww you have to
>> troubleshoot, so the question is, in this situation where you must
>> troubleshoot, what do you think of system transparency (a system or
>> subsystem with accessible test points and adjustments AND the ability
>> to see its sub components and how they connect to each other)?
>>
>> SteveT
>>
>> Steve Litt
>>
>> Autumn 2023 featured book: Rapid Learning for the 21st Century
>> http://www.troubleshooters.com/rl21
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> 
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