*BSD News Article 43683


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From: cbbrown@io.org (Christopher B. Browne)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.powerpc,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.misc,comp.security.misc,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.misc
Subject: Re: WNT security problems (was: Best platform to learn Unix on ?)
Date: 5 May 1995 07:43:53 -0400
Organization: Internex Online (io.org) Data: 416-363-4151  Voice: 416-363-8676
Lines: 40
Message-ID: <3od31p$46c@ionews.io.org>
References: <ABB885FB96683E495@vader.demon.co.uk> <3n8tjr$h1t@nz12.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de> <itbaop.2949@pukrs7.puk.ac.za> <3nm6n0$vt@news4.primenet.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: bonk.io.org

In article <3nm6n0$vt@news4.primenet.com>,
Jeff Rugen <jrugen@primenet.com> wrote:
>Anton Opperman (itbaop@pukrs7.puk.ac.za) wrote:
>: >>Not even Windows 95 offers operating system protection of memory
>: >Where do you get this information from?  In view of WNT's C2 security
>: >rating, I'm be a bit surprised at this.
>
>:   Maby MS was trying to get it C2 rated, but for a system to be C2 rated it
>:   has to comply with both C1 and C2.
>
>Are you sure about this?  I was under the impression that the lower # was 
>more secure - i.e.
>Trusted Xenix - B1
>Sun Compartmentalized Workstation - B2

Boy, this posting is full of errors.

a) Windows NT is *not* C2 rated at this time.  Nor is C1 rated.  Nor
even D rated (not that anyone ever bothers rating a D-rated system).  
It is not yet a rated system.

b) Higher numbers mean "more secure."  The ordering is:

D -> C1 -> C2 -> B1 -> B2 -> B3 -> B4 -> A1

where ratings above A1 are merely rumoured.  See the Orange book.

c) "Not even Windows 95 offers operating system protection of memory"

If true, that statement suggests that Windows 2000 does not make
use of processor features that have been in the Intel line for some
years now.

It may be a misinterpretation of the "it's really still MS-DOS running
underneath" assertion which is only partially true, and not so true
as to prevent the use of memory management features of the 80(>3)86
CPUs.
-- 
Christopher Browne - cbbrown@io.org
Microsoft Office - What you use when you don't have access to good software.