-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [e-lang] A dissertation on the rationale, philosophy, and goals of E and related systems Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 20:06:30 -0700 From: Mark S. Miller markm@cs.jhu.edu Reply-To: Discussion of E and other capability languages e-lang@mail.eros-os.org To: Discussion of E and other capability languages e-lang@mail.eros-os.org, "General discussions concerning capability systems." cap-talk@mail.eros-os.org, oz-e@info.ucl.ac.be, Mozart users@mozart-oz.org, Squeak-E squeak-e@lists.squeakfoundation.org, Squeak-dev squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org, p2p-hackers@zgp.org, anti-fraud@lists.cacert.org, croquet@lists.wisc.edu, modules@discuss.squeakfoundation.org, hcisec@yahoogroups.com

Apologies for the wide distribution, but elements of this dissertation are germane to each of these lists. Feedback appreciated, but please reply to me or on an appropriate list, rather than using "Reply all". The copyright notice is interim, until I figure out what open license I want on this.

Robust Composition: Towards a Unified Approach to Access Control and Concurrency Control

When separately written programs are composed so that they may cooperate, they may instead destructively interfere in unanticipated ways. These hazards limit the scale and functionality of the software systems we can successfully compose. This dissertation presents a framework for enabling those interactions between components needed for the cooperation we intend, while minimizing the hazards of destructive interference.

Great progress on the composition problem has been made within the object paradigm, chiefly in the context of sequential, single-machine programming among benign components. We show how to extend this success to support robust composition of concurrent and potentially malicious components distributed over potentially malicious machines. We present E, a distributed, persistent, secure programming language, and CapDesk, a virus-safe desktop built in E, as embodiments of the techniques we explain.

My dissertation at Johns Hopkins University, found at http://www.erights.org/talks/thesis/index.html

Advisor: Jonathan S. Shapiro. Readers: Scott Smith, Yair Amir.