[cap-talk] Capabilities and Freedom vs. Safety

[Jonathan S. Shapiro]

On Fri, 2007-07-27 at 17:11 +0100, Toby Murray wrote:
> Back in the early 80s, I don't expect
> many would have believed there'd be an open and freely available
> commodity operating system developed collaboratively by thousands. I
> hope to live to see your statement proved wrong.

James has a point. Capabilities aren't the answer to all of the world's
security problem. They are merely the foundation on which *some* of the
answers can be solidly built. It remains true that the majority of
abuses are conducted by *authorized* users making "improper" use of
their authority. POLA helps, but beyond POLA this is a problem that
capabilities cannot really solve.