Hacker News Reader

Comment by lifeisstillgood | Hacker News Reader

What do we do next week?

So assuming everyone uses sneaker-net to restart what’s looking like millions of windows boxes, there comes recriminations but then … what?

I think we need to look at minimum viable PC - certain things are protected more than others. Phones are a surprisingly good example - there is a core set of APIs and no fucker is ever allowed to do anything except through those. No matter how painful. At some point MSFT is going to enforce this the way Apple does. The EU court cases be damned.

For most tasks for most things it’s hard to suggest that an OS and a webbrowser are not the maximum needed.

We have been saying it for years - what I think we need is a manifesto for much smaller usable surface areas

View on HN

In this case even dockerized environments would allow you to redeploy with ease.

But that's too much work, many of these systems are running docker resistant software. Management doesn't want to invest in modernization - it works this quarter, it's someone else's problem next quarterly.

You're basically proposing Windows 12 to radically limit what software and drivers can do. Even then eventually someone will probably still break it with weird code.

I'm actually amazed these updates are being tested in prod. Do they have no QA environments ?

Do I personally need to create a startup company called Paranoia... We actually run a clone of your prod environment minus any sensitive data, then we install all the weird and strange updates before they hit your production servers...

As an upsell we'll test out privileges, to take sure your junior engineers can't break prod.

Someone raise a seed round, I'm down to get started this week.

> In this case even dockerized environments would allow you to redeploy with ease.

Not if the CIO mandated that your bare-metal OS hosting Docker has to run a rootkit developed by bozos.

Isn't that basically the point of WinRT and Windows 10 S Mode? The problem is getting developers to adopt the new more secure APIs.

I think this is existential for Windows, and by extension MSFT. Something like 95% of corporate IT activity is either over http (ie every saas and web app) or is over the serial port (controlling that HVAC, that window blind, that garage lifter)

So what we need in 95% of boxes is not a fully capable PC - we need a really locked down OS. Or rather we can get by with a locked down OS.

I would put good money on there already being a tiny OS from the ground up in MSFT that could be relabelled windows-locked-Down(13) and sold exclusively to large corporates (and maybe small ones who sign a special piece of marketing paper)

The thing is once you do that you are breaking the idea that windows can run everywhere (or rather we claim Linux runs everywhere but the thing that’s on my default unbuntu install and the thing on my router are different

Reply on news.ycombinator.com