[Cryptography] Do capabilities work? Do ACLs work?

[Peter Gutmann]

ianG <iang at iang.org> writes:

>Also, the users continue to demand ACLs.

I don't think users demand ACLs (or capabilities), they demand some means of
doing things like "make sure the competition doesn't get hold of our business
plans" or "make sure no-one outside payroll and the employee concerned can see
pay details".  Whether you use ACLs, capabilities, or nasally-housed demons
doesn't really matter.

Having said that, ACLs are better-suited to expressing most of what users want
then capabilities.  The reason why both Unix and Windows use groups and
permissions the way they do isn't because of a grand anti-capability
conspiracy, it's because that's the most practical/real-world-applicable way
to do it.

Peter.