Re: Part 2: System Structure

[BVK]

On 5/17/06, Marcus Brinkmann <address@hidden> wrote:
> Or, to put it the other way round: Being able to cheat _ensures_ that
> I can always play for entertainment, and not because I want to achieve
> something else, because it leaves me the option to skip parts of the
> activity that I find tedious.  So, cheating in this case helps a lot
> to prevent or contain addiction.

Consider a slightly modified use case: Online exams and marks files.
This usecase is similar to games and high score files, except that
this doesn't involve that *addiction* part, and cheating should not be
allowed.

Assume there exists a college where midterm exams are conducted for
every subject (say once every month).  All the exams are conducted
online, and exams need not be of same type, (ie, some are objective
type, some are fill-in-the-blanks, some are programming assignments,
some are of wired kind -- a program can evaluate is the point here).
Every exam for every subject has a corresponding marks file where
result of evaluation is stored. How is this use case handled?

If we assume a trusted service service updates the marks file, then we
need different services to evaluate different type of exams (one for
objective type, one for fill-in-the-blanks, etc).  BAD.  Or worse, if
professors dont trust each other, then M professors, each teaching N
different subjects, trusted service design requires M*N services.
HECK.

I hope you understand my usecase.

If ditching non-trivial confinement (encapsulation *and* confinement)
is only for preventing DRM kind of software on HurdNG, then i am
tempted to ask - Can trivial-confinement *guarantee* us that DRM kind
of software is *impossible*? Even in the presence of TC chip driver
and closed software? I dont know the answer :(.  I believe only a
strict licence, like "every software which uses HurdNG servers either
directly or *indirectly* must be GPLed" can only make DRM software
impossible for HurdNG (Im assuming that open source DRM software is
impossible, isn't it?) Ofcourse, with such a licencing, there is no
point in asking for transparent space-banks, we already have source,
right?

Just my 2 cents :-)
-bvk