Re: [Fed-Talk] Apple closes down OS X Kernel
Re: [Fed-Talk] Apple closes down OS X Kernel
- Subject: Re: [Fed-Talk] Apple closes down OS X Kernel
- From: Brian Raymond <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 17 May 2006 17:56:53 -0400
- Thread-topic: [Fed-Talk] Apple closes down OS X Kernel
Title: Re: [Fed-Talk] Apple closes down OS X Kernel
I’ve used all of those arguments as well to fight for OSX/Linux/Solaris (used the closed source = security argument for Solaris in the past) in different environments to justify differnet things so I know very well how that can work.
I fought the “closed source = security” battle in the past at DISA in front of some high ranking officials and I have kept up with that fight in my current work and although that argument still holds a lot of strength it is being eroded away. Security through obscurity has won a lot of battles but hopefully in the not too distant future the general consensus will be that “security through obscurity” doesn’t in itself imply a solution is more secure (read: closed source = high security).
I didn’t go far enough to say “security through obscurity is no security at all” because that argument will take a long while to win.
- Brian
On 5/17/06 5:46 PM, "Michael Pike" <email@hidden> wrote:
The angle I usually use is the "Unix" base. We have a lot of people here that do not believe in open source so by saying Unix it implies to the "ones in the know" that it is open source. In a way, you could even play it up as a better feature (for the windows heads that use open source as a negative) saying it is now closed source, but still uses the powerful more secure Unix extensions so it is better than Windows on both front, source code protection and it's unix based :).
Apple could say, "Hey, we listened to our government customer concerns, and we now have a closed source kernel for the intel platform in the interest of their security concerns." Pawn it off as a "we are doing it to help you" riff.
mike
On 5/17/06, Brian Raymond <email@hidden> wrote:
Valid point, although I was using the term proprietary with a focus on the operating system in the sense most do when discussing Windows vs. OSX, Linux, etc. meaning closed source = proprietary.
- Brian
On 5/17/06 3:35 PM, "Michael Pike" <email@hidden> wrote:
Just a little comment of my own here... even though it is closed source does not mean it is proprietary. Keep in mind that even though OS X itself may close the kernel (and I can see why they have done it), you can still run open source operating systems on the Mac since it has an intel processor.
On 5/17/06, Brian Raymond <email@hidden> wrote:
I imagine this will generate some traffic on the list so I thought I would
throw my hat in the ring.
It looks like the Intel version of the OSX kernel might so closed source, I
can understand the reasoning however I don't think it will solve the
problem. If Apple is trying to limit what crackers can attack when trying to
get it to run on generic hardware I think it might help a little but it will
not solve the problem because people will still crack it.
The second more general point I wanted to make regarding Apple's source has
been that this has been used time and time again as a reason why you would
use Apple over competitors. I can't see Apple being able to use the
non-proprietary argument anymore.
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=14663&Page=1&pagePos=8 <http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=14663&Page=1&pagePos=8> <http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=14663&Page=1&pagePos=8> <http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=14663&Page=1&pagePos=8>
- Brian
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