RE: Hypothetical design question

[ljknews <ljknews () mac com>]

At 8:45 AM +1030 1/29/04, Nick Lothian wrote:

> I think either the email client or the operating system needs to protect the
> user from malicious programs _by default_ (on a non-professionally
> administered system). I don't think an email client can do this, and I'm not
> aware of any operating system that really supplies this protection (although
> most can be configured to provide some protection. Perhaps capability based
> operating systems do this?)

I would think MVS provides this capability, as Mandatory Access Control
(where the user cannot change the protection) is sort of built in.

> On the other hand, the operating system/email client still needs to allow
> one-click execution of attachments - it should just restrict them from doing
> malicious things.

Specifying that is a lot easier than implementing it :-)