Path: csiph.com!x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net!newsfeed.hal-mli.net!feeder1.hal-mli.net!border3.nntp.dca.giganews.com!Xl.tags.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!news.giganews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2011 00:42:08 -0500 Message-ID: <4DEDBA2F.6010503@SPAM.comp-arch.net> Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2011 22:42:07 -0700 From: "Andy \"Krazy\" Glew" Reply-To: andy@SPAM.comp-arch.net Organization: comp-arch.net User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.11) Gecko/20101013 Thunderbird/3.1.5 MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: History of byte addressing References: <4DEA7297.7000800@SPAM.comp-arch.net> <752ee724-f894-4881-b4d3-033b72a7d7d3@u26g2000vby.googlegroups.com> <248b8b45-50f6-4cd6-b98a-2b57629b3390@c26g2000vbq.googlegroups.com> <18608bba-ef46-4abb-9eed-d94089feb2ce@d28g2000yqf.googlegroups.com> <23mnu61edv7fhk7jqu583t426g10ep0e20@4ax.com> <6567982e-af70-494f-b064-72a8c587665c@g28g2000yqa.googlegroups.com> <_6_Gp.42449$5f.2673@newsfe19.iad> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 45 X-Usenet-Provider: http://www.giganews.com X-Trace: sv3-ObczzJyZoTYFg5HLKzWixxTcX7O1wkqxroVesOh7rw8CzHa0bpcTti0pO2n87O1irQ54B2+C9WEVgA/!nhx1Z64iuDdklXL684/xhI+QwQuxsBX3ONErr6/40T/z5wsoy7z5cXl5AKTpZg== X-Complaints-To: abuse@giganews.com X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.40 X-Original-Bytes: 3821 Xref: x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net comp.arch:2074 On 6/6/2011 10:49 AM, Stephen Fuld wrote: > On 6/6/2011 10:34 AM, EricP wrote: >> Stephen Fuld wrote: >>> On 6/5/2011 11:04 PM, EricP wrote: >>>> Quadibloc wrote: >>>>> On Jun 5, 1:43 pm, Louis Krupp >>>> They would have to make the exe file format secret and maybe ban >>>> disassemblers or something. A policy that sounds ripe for hacking. >>> >>> No, they are not secret, so you can know about them, and even write a >>> program that looks exactly like an executable, but you can't get it >>> executed. >> >> Fine, so I write my assembler in Fortran and generate the proto-exe file. >> Then I write another program in Fortran that copies files to tape >> using a raw data format that mimics the backup file format, >> but sets the magic bits in the file meta data marking it as an exe. >> Then I copy my assembler to tape, now with its proper meta header, >> back it down to disk, and Bob's Your Uncle I have my assembler. > > That indeed used to be a hole, but it was fixed some time ago. I don't > know the details. Perhaps someone else could chime in here. > > >> Refusing to sell the customer an assembler if that's what >> they want is a silly autocratic control freak attitude. >> After all, it is the customer's computer. > > Do do you fault Intel/AMD for not selling the customer a microcode > assembler, etc? After all, the customer bought the chip. > > Not having user access to write "assembler" level code is integral to > the security and integrity model. You see, there is no hardware "user > mode" versus "Supervisor" or "Privileged" mode. Thus allowing user > access to the low level stuff would allow him to compromise the system > as he could over write the OS, other user's code, etc. And I believe that the problems with validating Burroughs' security model were what led Virgil Gligor to make it a requirement that all secure machines for US government use had to have at least kernel/user privilege levels. The problem with Burroughs' model is that you have to prove the compiler and/or assembler correct.