[unrev-II] ERights.org, home of "E" - Capability-Based Smart Contracts

From: John J. Deneen (jjdeneen@netzero.net)
Date: Wed Sep 26 2001 - 14:05:16 PDT

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    A Mozilla compatible, open source p2p scripting language for distributed
    capabilities.
    < http://www.erights.org/ >

    "We have entered the age of globally distributed computing with a
    vengeance. Anyone who has cobbled together a major system with a
    hodgepodge of Web servers, Java, JSP, SQL, CGI, CORBA, RMI, XML, and
    Perl knows that this cannot be the toolset we will use in 20 years. The
    sooner we move up to the tools of 20 years hence, the better off we will
    be. Into this situation we introduce E:

       * E is the best language introduced to date for developing
         distributed systems. As one quick example of its power, the E
         Promise Architecture ensures that deadlock cannot occur.

       * E is the only sensible language introduced to date for secure
         distributed systems. All communication in E is strongly encrypted,
         transparently to the programmer. Capability-based security makes
         writing and auditing the security elements possible to an extent
         heretofore unachievable. It is straightforward to create E systems
         that run across the Internet that are as secure and safe as if the
         entire system were running on a single computer in your basement.
         We demonstrate this with the eChat example, a 5-page program that
         embodies a complete 2-person secure chat system.

       * E is the first language ever introduced that is able to cope with
         multi-party partial-trust mobile code. "Mobile code" is just about
         anything executable on your computer that you get from somewhere
         else. Every time you turn on a word processor, or double click on
         an email attachment, you are executing mobile code written by
         someone you probably don't know and should not trust with the total
         authority to rewrite your operating system. Yet you wind up totally
         trusting such programs because you have no choice. If Microsoft
         used E instead of Visual Basic for its application language, Word
         and Excel would not be vectors for viruses like ****** . If all
         software were written in E, the Love Bug and BackOrifice could
         never have existed: indeed, the term "virus", so loved by the press
         because it implies incurability, would never have been applied to
         computing. And do not expect the next release of Java, NT, or Linux
         to fix the problem: the flaws in these systems lie at the heart of
         their architectures, unfixable without breaking upward
         compatibility, as we shall discuss in the chapter on Secure
         Distributed Programming. Of course, there is nothing to prevent
         people from advertising that they are releasing a new, upward
         compatible, totally-secure version of a product.

    Just don't jump off the Brooklyn Bridge to buy it."



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