Reliability and security of today’s software platforms

Speaker: Norman Hardy

Abstract: There is much talk these days, even among computer professionals, that computer security is hopeless. I will argue that while it might be a slog, there are simple paths towards reliability and security. The insight is that there may be no complex paths. Our current trajectory is away from reliability and security. Function on today’s platforms are vulnerable to all the complexity running there. The capability paradigm allows function within a complex system that is vulnerable to very little.

Norman Hardy[1] is a recognized authority on communication, security, and operating system technologies. His extensive experience as senior scientist, senior programmer, and physicist includes projects at Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, IBM, Tymshare, Key Logic, Agorics, and others.

He is the architect of KeyKOS[2], a portable micro-kernel operating system providing the architecture for security, robust availability, efficient hosting of other operating systems, persistent virtual memory, and resource accounting. KeyKOS was recommended by the NCSC for a B3 security rating. He holds 10 computer security patents. He was the co-architect of Tymnet, the first and largest private, packet-switch network that was most recently owned and operated by British Telecom.

[1] http://www.cap-lore.com/
[2] http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~KeyKOS/NanoKernel/NanoKernel.html