Re: Trusted Unices Aren't?

[Gordon Greene <Gordon.Greene () netsec net>]

> Jeremy Epstein <jepstein () tis com> said :
>
> > I've never heard that VMS was designed as MLS, and given the pain they went
> > through to get it evaluated, I doubt it was.  Having said that, it
> > certainly has fewer "gimme-all-privileges" applications (as you correctly
> > note), for two reasons: it was correctly designed to have granularity of
> > privileges and there are fewer applications altogether :-)
>
> The first reason is good enough to ease securing the system much (comapring
> to unices..)

Actually, there is a B1 VMS system:

http://www.digital.com/security/sevms.htm
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Security has been a key strength of the OpenVMS operating system since the
first version. Today with client/server computing and Internet
connectivity, security is more important than ever before. SEVMS, a
security-enhanced version of OpenVMS, satisfies the need of government
agencies, national defense organizations, prime contractors, and other
commercial environments to label and protect classified information.

SEVMS provides mandatory access controls (MAC) and enhanced security
auditing for secure standalone or clustered OpenVMS systems. SEVMS provides
the system security manager with software to enforce a system wide security
policy that helps protect users, data, software, and hardware from security
compromise.

Designed to meet recognized security standards

SEVMS for OpenVMS VAX meets the B1 level of security as defined by the
United States National Computer Security Center (NCSC).

Some features

SEVMS allows security managers to:

     Define and control access between subjects (users) and objects (files,
programs, and devices). 
     Designate sensitivity labels, consisting of hierarchical levels and
non-hierarchical categories for any user, file, program, or device.
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Looks pretty MLS to me!