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