This was before my time, but I'm wondering if anyone here has experience with this OS: http://deathrow.vistech.net/defcon.txt VMS was legitimately difficult to compromise back in the 1990s. Not "relatively secure" like Linux, which seems to get another dire kernel vulnerability every year, but actually legitimately secure by good design. It was difficult to compromise then, and it is still difficult to compromise now. http://deathrow.vistech.net/openvms-hack-faq.txt So. Powerful computers are super cheap now, and most run x86 processors, which have four hardware privilege rings (just like the Alpha). ANSI C provides all the tools necessary for secure data structures in the kernel. ... And Windows NT was designed with help from Dave Cutler, who also worked on VMS. NT borrows heavily from VMS, including the kernel data structures... So why is workstation security so godawful right now?
