[E-Lang] Rights Amplification: The Next Layer Up

[Tyler Close]

Markm wrote:
> Ok.  What should I read first?  From briefly looking again
> at the Waterken
> site, it seems the relevant thing is Acid rather than
> Droplets?  Is this
> correct?  Should I be looking at the version on the site,
> or is there a more
> recent one I should read instead?

There's a 2.0 version of pretty much everything that is coming. Some
of it is more ready than others. For Acid, I still need to upgrade
some of the containers. Still, there's enough done to have this
discussion.

I've posted a 2.0 pre-Beta version of Acid at:
http://www.waterken.com/Acid/2.0/

> I take that your above point is specific to the
> serialization question,
> rather than an objection to the getOptMeta rights
> amplification protocol?
> Even without serialization, we still need such a protocol to enable
> user-written auditors.

In Markm's first post:
> * equality: sameness testing & hashing
> * verifying an object instantiates an audited expression
>      and therefore has the properties that auditor ensures
> * equivalent of Java's package-scope pattern of rights amplification
> * debugging (obviously requires rights amplification)
> * application-specific needs for rights amplification, as
> in the MintMaker's
>    purses.  (It's really ugly for normally clients to see
> that there's a
>    getDecr method, but be unable to use it.)

I think *3 and *5 are not good points.

For *3, I think E should encourage the use of sealer/unsealer pairs as
a better alternative.

*5 doesn't make sense. You are essentially saying that it's less ugly
to add a rights amplification method to all classes rather than to
just the ones that need it.

For the others, I was happy with letting the TCB have a privileged
interface. The TCB *has* access to the meta information, why should it
need to ask permission?

I am not sure I understand *2 fully. Could you elaborate?

Tyler


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