From: Geoffrey Avila <avlg <at> sdsc.edu>
Subject: Re: Using the Acme Editor
Newsgroups: gmane.os.plan9.general
Date: 2008-08-20 23:15:15 GMT (1 year, 2 weeks, 7 hours and 24 minutes ago)

Not (currently) a Plan 9 user, but I gotta chime in:

> It seems the security ascribed to disposable machines comes from that "user 
> data" is stored on a different, presumably safer, machine in, for example, 
> some sort of data warehouse at a data center. This isn't a new 
> idea--actually, it's _very_ old--and it's not what happens in home (or 
> personal) computing.

You're right; it isn't. Is that good or bad? What about in an office 
environment? Same answer there?

>> Plan 9 respects that. Not trusting the hostowner is a waste of effort.
>
> Not with reliable biometric authentication, but that's out of scope here.
>

Way, way out of scope. Kinda like a fusion-powered terminal.

>
> Now, your home computer may be a true single user machine but you store 
> _some_ authentication information on it anyway; those of yours, namely. Such 
> machine is in that respect as vulnerable as a UNIX machine. It has to be 
> _physically_ guarded. It's no more a "disposable" machine.

This is the argument I had for using Sunrays in public places at work. 
Single user, and if they were ganked from the lobby one night, the theives 
would only have a middling LCD monitor instead of a windows system with 
cached credentials.

>
> This is classic. Complication is a sign of maturation.

...or incipient schizophrenia.

> by not maturing, by avoiding diversification. Before you get angry I must say 
> that's my "personal" opinion. Nothing I'm going to "force" unto you. Nothing 
> I _can_ force unto you.

Would that I could force you into not using double-quotes for emphasis!

-GBA