Cyber crime and serious consequences result from the unfettered power gifted to hackers and malware by general purpose computers. Rampant cyber crime and malware is debilitating. This threat and uncertainty limits progress. It is the unpleasant consequence of undetected digital trespass that is actually authorized by the shortcomings of general purpose computers.
Dangerous default privileges are granted that allow malware to interfere and spy, steal and cause deliberately targeted harm. It is the result of over exposed data in a dangerous digital framework where authority and boundaries overlap. When data is left naked as a shared binary image, malware takes easy advantage.
Crafted cyber attacks enter through cracks in security to exploit time shared digital space. This harms the most vital machines of modern cyber society. To solve the problem, computers should guarantee digital integrity by limiting digital authority based on need, following a POLA mantra.
When the natural form of programs and data coincide with native functionality critical membranes separate private assets and innately protect each independent digital organs of activity. A typed computer guards these organs as natural, safely embedded objects in a body of software. This removes the voids and cracks of unnatural space that lead to undetected infection and ensuing criminal activity in general purpose computers.
A typed computer is the antithesis of a general purpose computer. It is technology hardened and easily programmed. It needs no operating system. It uses no privileged modes. It has no default power. It is a direct drive solution with private peer to peer communication. It shares namespace addressing across a network. It is reprogrammed in real time, on-the-fly, call by call, domain by domain. This solves the problem of deterministic memory-safety and enables click-safe usability.
The individual citizens and the unattended control systems of cyber society could be automatically protected by typed computers but is there time and is there a will to change?
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