On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 3:16 PM, Rich Kulawiec <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 11:40:36AM -0400, der Mouse wrote: > > There's just no excuse - IMO - for using the most insecure (in > > practice) operating system on the planet for an ATM...especially in the > > presence of all the alternatives. (Not all the alternatives are really > > _good_, but practically anything else is better than Windows.) > > I strongly concur. > > And I'll go one step further: use of ANY general-purpose operating > system on an ATM is a bad move. It only needs to perform a small subset > of the computing operations available in a general-purpose OS, therefore > it shouldn't be running one. What it *should* be running is something > tailored explicitly for the task at hand, which deliberately omits > every bit of functionality that's unessential. (Every excess function > represents increased potential for exploitation as well as increased > software maintenance and testing effort.) > > Now whether that OS/monitor is built from the ground up or whether > it's built by stripping an existing OS is an interesting question. > I think for this particular application, "ground-up" is a better > approach, since cost is obviously not an issue and because it > diminishes the risk of propagating known flaws in the general-purpose > OS downward. Moreover, ground-up allows for the full SDLC -- > where I'd hope that security requirements would be allowed to > trump all others. (Which is often not the case in general-purpose > OS design.) > > Great ideas and I couldnt agree more. You're about 5 years too late. :)
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