[cap-talk] Horton at HotSec '07: How broadly object/capability?

[Jonathan S. Shapiro]

On Mon, 2007-07-09 at 00:16 +0000, Karp, Alan H wrote:
> I've read through the referee's comments, Jed's, and MarkM's response to
> Jed.  There are two different items that we need to deal with, the paper
> and the talk.  The paper that was accepted is about Horton, and it would
> be irresponsible to rewrite it now to focus on capability systems in
> general at the expense of the topic that was reviewed.  The talk is a
> different matter entirely.  I have no problem spending much more time on
> motivation and referring to the paper in the proceedings for details.

I have already spoken to MarkM about the paper. My general sense is that
the problem is very simple: the current introduction needs to be
re-written sequentially. A topical sort of the existing paragraphs of
the intro will resolve most of the confusion. [Hypothesis: People who
originate hypertext systems experience neural decay in the part of the
brain that deals with linear presentation.]

I would *not* deviate from the paper topic at the talk. The committee
accepted the paper because they think that the problem space is
interesting. You may assume that the HotSec audience is *very* well
read. They may not be capability fans, but most of them will know about
capabilities.

Given this, I would caution you not to lower the level of the talk.
Instead, you should *raise* it, because your end goal is to promote a
discussion that will be remembered and will therefore have influence.
The best way to do that is to engage the group in a discussion that will
be perceived as controversial. You have taken the right first step by
noting that ACLs don't work and pointing out why capabilities have not
been adopted. The latter point will surely receive comment, and you
should try to keep the discussion on the topic of the solution. Simply
by steering the controversial claim ("this is why caps have not been
adopted") off the table in the public discussion you will cause people
to debate it over their next meal. If you can do that, you win.


> Since some of the referees were confused about some points, and we're
> not getting more space, I think we should remove the implementation
> details.

I STRONGLY DISAGREE.

The people going to this workshop have limited time. They will review
the paper before the talk. They will scrutinize the code. If they have
to go to an outside source you have lost.

The existing structure of the paper fundamentally isn't broken outside
of the introduction. MarkM alleges that the text is "tight". It is not.
Fix the intro, give it a ruthless edit for clarity and punch, and
declare victory.

shap
-- 
Jonathan S. Shapiro, Ph.D.
Managing Director
The EROS Group, LLC