[cap-talk] What sparked interest in capabilities

[John McCabe-Dansted]

On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 3:14 AM, Bill Frantz <frantz at pwpconsult.com> wrote:

> Jed points out that work on capabilities came to a near standstill
> during the capability nadir of the late 1980s and early 1990s.  For
> people who have become interested in capabilities since then, what
> caused you to develop that interest?


It is was clear that giving each process all the rights of the human user
was far too permissive.

I think I read a discussion of how capabilities were not only more secure,
but also simpler.  E.g. If you are handed a file, you have to attempt to
open it, and handle failures if it won't open for what ever reason. If you
are handed a cap/file-handle you can just skip that step.

Easier to code, more reliable or more secure? Pick any three.

-- 
John C. McCabe-Dansted
PhD Student
University of Western Australia
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