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Received: from sloth.swcp.com (sloth.swcp.com [198.59.115.25]) by nacm.com (8.6.10/8.6.9) with ESMTP id KAA09572 for <executor@nacm.com>; Thu, 1 Jun 1995 10:09:57 -0700 Received: from iclone.UUCP (uucp@localhost) by sloth.swcp.com (8.6.9/8.6.9) with UUCP id LAA26497; Thu, 1 Jun 1995 11:09:55 -0600 Received: from beaut.ardi.com by mailhost with smtp (nextstep Smail3.1.29.0 #11) id m0sHDjM-000YbmC; Thu, 1 Jun 95 11:08 MDT Received: by beaut.ardi.com (linux Smail3.1.28.1 #5) id m0sHDjL-00000BC; Thu, 1 Jun 95 11:08 MDT Message-Id: <m0sHDjL-00000BC@beaut.ardi.com> Date: Thu, 1 Jun 95 11:08 MDT From: ctm@ardi.com (Clifford Thomas Matthews) To: "Mark W. Eichin" <eichin@MIT.EDU> Cc: executor@nacm.com Subject: Re: 1.99n status report In-Reply-To: <9506011647.AA00872@perdiem.cygnus.com> References: <9506011647.AA00872@perdiem.cygnus.com> Sender: owner-paper@nacm.com Precedence: bulk >>>>> "Mark" == Mark W Eichin <eichin@mit.edu> writes: Mark> Sounds great... though this entry: >> Ability for programs to detect that they are running under >> Executor Mark> kind of worries me. Is there any good reason for this Mark> feature, or will it be configurable? I don't particularly Mark> want a program to know it is running on anything special... I can assure you that we don't have time to implement features that don't have good reasons for their existence. The reason we're putting in the ability of programs to detect when they're running under Executor is so that eventually people can include native code for the x86 in their program so that CPU intensive portions can run at native speed. We're also putting in enough information so that programs that write directly to the screen (something you can't do under Executor/Linux/X-Windows, unless you use the horribly inefficient "refresh" option) can chose not to in certain Executor configurations. I hadn't thought of making it configurable, but that's a good point; I'll think about it. I'm guessing your concern is that people could conceivably write nasty viruses that work specially under Executor. If so, I think the worry is a bit overreaching, since anyone who is willing to go to that much trouble can already do that. For instance, << way of determining that you're running under Executor elided >>. It wouldn't take a rocket scientist to find this or one of a dozen other ways to detect that an application is running under Executor. --Cliff ctm@ardi.com