Google Announces KataOS: Security-Focused OS, Using Rust and SeL4 Microkernel | Hacker News Reader

Google Announces KataOS: Security-Focused OS, Using Rust and SeL4 Microkernel

phoronix.com

84 pointsksec58 comments

Security-focused and Google shouldn’t be in the same sentence.

Security-driven software should last longer than 14 months before axing the project…

Came here to say this as well. Actively considering selling my Samsung S20 for a pure linux phone. Something like https://store.planetcom.co.uk/products/cosmo-communicator

/Can/ one run mainline GNU/Linux on the Cosmo Communicator? On their website, it says Linux and Sailfish OS support are planned, but not ready yet. And, will it be pure Linux, or will it be running on top of Androids HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer)?

My understanding is that the Pinephone, Pinephone Pro, or Librem 5 are the only pure Linux phones available... and the Librem 5 is 'barely' available given the long lead time on orders.

Technically, Maemo Leste is a pure Linux option on some older handsets, but I'm not sure any of them support VoLTE, so increasingly that would mean no telephony support... depending on where one is in the world and whether they've dropped 3G and 4G non-LTE calling.

I would love to know if there's other pure Linux options.

Last I remember checking in on this properly, it was basically as you are asking, but they also had some thing stated somewhere about supporting things like Kali Linux. So I think the answer is ultimately "yes", but eventually.

LOL.. okay, so we should just ignore Kubernetes as being on of the biggest contributions to scalable environments because it was by Google. Time for everyone to stop using Kubernetes and Android and everything else then in favor of the more open platforms like IOS, amiright?

I think the point they parent posters were making is that with Google you really never know which of their projects will live long and which will get axed.

That makes Google products risky to build your business on.

What company is that not true for?

U must be kidding right? Google axes projects like atleast 1/month. Dont try to make it seem normal.

https://killedbygoogle.com/

The tech in the article is open source, lol.

What does it have to do with anything tho? I mean you could fork Android but its Upstream can still be killed, it wont be maintained by google anymore. You seem to be mixing things.

Something that’s open source can’t be killed.

Yes it can, community fork which aint maintained by Google is not google anymore. Fork all you want, if Google kills it from its repos, its still killed by google.

Microsoft, Amazon, and to a lesser extent even Apple.

all of those companies have also cancelled or killed products and services. you might say Google has killed more, but Google also starts more, so...

> but Google also starts more

Who cares how many they start? They could start a million products per year, and that would not change the fact that depending on a Google service involves considerable risk.

I'm not sure why you're working so hard to defend this hill, but it would seem your local minima is within a deep crater.

I'm in full agreement here, Google starts more products and kills more products. So that means... I'm less trusting that any google product is to survive. That was the original point made above.

You’re being too dramatic, https://killedbygoogle.com/ was made for a reason.

When was the last time you heard about a major Google data breach?

I’m kind of a Google-hater myself but… there’s few companies that could do better security.

2018: https://firewalltimes.com/google-data-breach-timeline/

Is that a breach? As far as I know, the description of that is "a google-internal audit found that some information was accessible but shouldn't have been, and found no evidence that that was accessed or used by anyone".

"Breach" usually implies actual misuse or access.

Data breaches can happen to anyone, but what the original comment implies is that Google would compromise your security, or at least your privacy, for profit. Its main profit venue is tracking people and selling ads.

Interesting that Fuchsia isn't mentioned, being capability based and having a microkernel. Seems like there should have been a short explanation of why they didn't use it.

I think Fuchsia and KataOS server different purposes. If I read this announcement correctly, KataOS is aimed more at smart light bulbs and such whereas Fuchsia is aimed at relatively powerful devices with a UI (thermostats, smart clocks, etc.) or with significant processing capabilities (Google Home and other smart speakers).

The Github page for Sparrow is counting RAM usage in megabytes with decimals, I don think Fuchsia will even run with less than 30MB of RAM. Their example for OOM events shows a device with 8GB of RAM, though I find it doubtful that even Google's hardware is that wasteful with system resources.

Ah, makes sense. I had seen the mention that the KataOS implementation is running on 64-bit ARM now in QEMU, which sounded more like Fuschia's space.

Though those small devices are getting pretty big hardware these days, since it's cheap now. Some of the Nest thermostats have 512MB of RAM, and 2GB in the higher end Home hubs.

It's kinda nutty to me that my thermostat has more RAM than my Windows XP laptop did 20 years ago.

Based on the function it serves I'm actually kind of appalled. It's a thermostat. You set the temperature and a schedule and it follows along. An ESP32 can do all the Wifi and Bluetooth connectivity you want with half a megabyte of RAM. Maybe you need a few megabytes for a framebuffer for the screen it has. But half a gigabyte?!

Yeah a lot more goes into the Device than what you would expect. It's not some RTOS base hack-a-day kind of product.

Well if your thermostat or meeting room door sign runs an instance of chromium in kiosk mode to use HTML/CSS/JS for its UI then you need 2 gigabytes of RAM.

>The Github page for Sparrow is counting RAM usage in megabytes with decimals,

I had to look it up [1] and fact check this statement. Turns out it really is "megabytes with decimals". Amazing!

[1] https://github.com/AmbiML/sparrow-manifest

So it’s more aimed to compete with Zephyr than with Linux

TL from the project here: you are absolutely correct. KataOS is for embedded systems research, whereas Fuchsia is more of a batteries included system designed for consumer devices.

Does it use or work with with Rust's embedded-hal in some way?

I'm not seeing mention of it on the initial website, so am guessing "no". :/

> Seems like there should have been a short explanation of why they didn't use it.

They don't own you anything, specially when they use it already in their products and just recently announced a new product with it [1], so you are just using FUD at this point

They mention: "Our team in Google Research"

They have multiple R&D teams so and they are working multiple projects

[1] - https://9to5google.com/2022/06/23/google-fuchsia-nest-hub-ma...

>They don't own you anything

It's not unusual when announcing a new product to explain where it fits in with the rest of the products and why it was needed.

They just released a new product with Fuschia 2 months ago, they still use it, why do you insist with "they don't use it anymore" when it's just not true at all

>why do you insist with "they don't use it anymore"

Didn't say that. Where did you get that quote, "they don't use it anymore" ?

I did say "why they didn't use it", meaning, "why didn't they use it for this specific use case?"

Should be merged with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33222400 I feel.

What happened to Fuchsia? I was happy about that and followed it briefly but haven't kept up, now all of a sudden they are announcing another new OS?

Different use cases, see here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33223040

A dead comment complains about the name KataOS, because of the existence of Kata Containers. It does not appear that Kata Containers has a trademark associated with their name. Corporations do not act "polite." They react to force of law.

PSA: If you run an open source project and you want to protect its name, you better put a ring on it.

But, I'm curious: is a container manager in a sufficiently similar market to an operating system to constitute brand confusion?

  > you better put a ring on it

a ring?

You know, the little t with a ring around it? Pretty sure that's what Beyoncé's talking about here?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4m1EFMoRFvY

lol, i wasn't sure, but kinda thought thats what it was, thanks ^_^

Why submitting the phoronix post, and not the original google blog post? Or better the GitHub AmbiML org repos, which does have much more information.

Maybe they didn't know better. You could link these resources though.

https://opensource.googleblog.com/2022/10/announcing-kataos-...

So this is the fourth OS Google is working on - Android, ChromeOS, Fuscia and now this?

Google has the focus of a crack addled flea

Also thousands upon thousands of engineers. Not all of these products are intended for the same use cases.

Yet Apple also has “thousand and thousands of engineers”. But one core OS and set of frameworks are used for phones, tablets, computers, watches, Tv set top boxes, monitors (yes the 27 inch monitor runs iOS on an iPhone 11 era chip), and speakers.

Is that also the excuse for Google releasing three messaging apps at one event?

Secured against whom? Users that want interoperability, or actual malicious actors?

How does Rust prevent off-by-one errors?

It can't really.. however the preference for "zero cost" iterators lessens the frequency with which you work with raw indices, so there's less opportunity to bungle things.

Has rust ever claimed to fix logic errors?

The linked page makes that specific claim.

Is this effectively the end of Fuschia?

Doesn't look like they're aiming at the same niche.

No.

Rust is going to the moon.

this is a game changer !

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