PromiscuOS?
1] "Then, on February 5th, the author of bliss, apparently a nice guy concerned that an earlier alpha version of his code (which was posted on September 29, 1996 to comp.security.unix, alt.comp.virus and comp.os.linux.misc) could still be in use, posted version 0.4.0 to the widely read Usenet newsgroup comp.security.unix, complete with ample warnings and the prospect of a future (GPL'ed?) source code release."
Axel Boldt. Bliss, A Linux "virus." online 2000
2] "ITS, in contrast, had a command whose specific function was crashing the system. All you had to do was type KILL SYSTEM, and the PDP-6 would grind to a halt. The idea was to take all the fun away from crashing the system by making it trivial to do that. On rare occasions, some loser would look at the available commands and say, "Wonder what KILL does?" and bring the system down, but by and large ITS proved that the best security was no security at all."
Steven Levy. Hackers. Penguin 1984
3] "… I judge computer security a disease rather than a cure, except for banks and such."
Richard Stallman. Computers Under Attack [Denning] 1990
PromiscuOS? concerns non-functional artistic generation at socially-implied levels of code and production, favouring promiscuous, leaky code and data over security and division by function or task. The PromiscuOS? project proposes the modification and re-distribution of an already existing GNU/Linux operating system with attendant functional applications. Such a modification will operate to remove security, segmentation and objectification (by way of category and filesystem) from all levels of the system (network and application) in favour of the generation, distribution and execution of mobile promiscuous code across all instances of the system. It is proposed that users would dual-boot such a system alongside the original (or close distribution), thus PromiscuOS? offers a flip-side to the functional and divisive qualities of the original in favour of open promiscuity for the production of artistic computation. The PromiscuOS? project engages with the open source development model of an existing operating system, rewriting core code of that system to divert towards the dysfunctional. At the same time PromiscuOS? will be floated as a typical, though very well publicised open source project, attracting by way of Slashdot and the like a community of developers who can advance the system away from the divisive at kernel and application levels. The PromiscuOS? project will offer all the usual trappings of such an effort, from mailing lists, through version control and both Sourceforge and Savannah repositories. PromiscuOS? offers the exposure of an open source development model within the context of an artistic and supremely non-functional project.
PromiscuOS? will exhibit the following characteristics amongst others.
a) Networked and environmentally active self display. Generation of code and data rather than response to input.
b) All process memory is readable and writable by any process or user. There is no hierarchy, no model of secure computing. Self display code will exploit this feature.
c) The ability to generate, disperse and run mobile code between machines.
d) Supreme pluggability - small apps can plug themselves together within a Unix model or a la Pd (but not in such graphic manner).
e) In relation to pluggability leaky streams rather than static segregated files - advance Unix model with new command line operations (spray, leak with level options specified).
The development model consists of publicity attracting community coders within a readily available infrastructure comprising content management, version control (of a fashionable variant such as darcs). The social nature of the project should be highlighted in relation to the crash event of February 11th 2004 curated by ap; both existing as discursive, social and code-based projects exploring highly production driven nature of operating systems within the expanded realm or economy of resource management.