[SIGCIS-Members] FW: computer security history

[Ceruzzi, Paul]

Thank you, Tom, for your comments. Your use of quotes around the word "historian" at first bothered me; then by coincidence a few minutes later I saw an obituary in the New York Times today for Peter Novick, a historian at the University of Chicago. His book, "That Noble Dream" (Cambridge 1988) challenged the notion of whether historians can ever be objective, no matter what primary or secondary sources they use. 

Paul E. Ceruzzi
Chair, Division of Space History
National Air & Space Museum
MRC 311; PO Box 37012
Washington, DC 20013-7012
202-633-2414 
<http://www.nasm.si.edu/staffDetail.cfm?staffID=24> 

-----Original Message-----
From: members-bounces at sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces at sigcis.org] On Behalf Of SIGCOS at bobf.frankston.com
Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2012 8:54 AM
To: 'sigcis'
Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] FW: computer security history



-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Van Vleck [mailto:thvv at multicians.org]
Sent: Monday, March 12, 2012 12:38
To: Bob Frankston
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] computer security history

The history of computer security has been extensively studied.
have them start with
   http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/history/

Many "historians" are only interested in information that is in hardbound books, preferably written by other "historians."
Most of these books pick some story, and then pick facts that support the story.

z/OS is a descendant of CP/CMS.  Googling suggests z/OS probably has been hacked, just not in the world view of guys from Compuware.

The phrase "digital pearl harbor" belongs to the History of Hype which is also worth studying, but is only tangentially related to computer security.


On Mar 11, 2012, at 10:40 PM, Bob Frankston wrote:

> Multics again ... perhaps I should also forward this to Jerry Saltzer
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: members-bounces at sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces at sigcis.org] 
> On Behalf Of William McMillan
> Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2012 18:04
> To: members at sigcis.org
> Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] computer security history
>
> Jon, et al.
>
> There might be some value in looking into the history of Multics, the 
> IBM System/360, and DEC VAX/VMS.  These were systems built from the 
> ground up with security in mind, even at the hardware level for 
> address-space protection.
>
> I'm sure there are other good cases, but these come to mind.
>
> I believe that Peter J. Denning's work on operating systems would also 
> be related.
>
> We had a mainframe guy from Compuware come in recently to talk to 
> students about current mainframes, which amount almost totally to the 
> IBM z Systems, descendants of the 360/370.  When someone asked about 
> security, he said forget about it. No one's ever hacked a z System.
>
> There's this whole, heavy-duty, bullet-proof world of hyper-secure 
> systems, and then the swamps and tangles most of us live in that 
> evolved from Unix, MS-DOS, the 8086, the Mac OS and other jury-rigged 
> OSs and hardware architectures.
>
> - Bill
>
> On 3/11/12, Jon Lindsay <jrlindsay at ucsd.edu> wrote:
>> Hello all,
>> I have the feeling that the history of computer security, from 
>> hacking techniques to the evolution of the information security 
>> industry to fearmongering over cybersecurity, is a somewhat 
>> understudied area. I have seen some work on the development of 
>> government policy and threat framing (i.e., by Myriam Dunn Cavelty) 
>> but I'm less aware of anything on the evolution of the technical and 
>> industrial dark arts. If there is some
good
>> work out there, I would love to see it.
>> Bonus points if you can tell me when the awful phrase "digital pearl 
>> harbor" first appeared!
>> Cheers,
>> Jon
>>
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