[TUHS] Government-Issue UNIX?

Arnold Robbins via TUHS tuhs at tuhs.org
Sun Oct 12 02:40:11 AEST 2025


Yes. He is two years older than I am, so I don't know him particularly
well. But his father still lives down the street from my parents.  :-)

Arnold

GARY LUCKENBAUGH via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:

> Oh yes, was it David Arnovitz at Secure Ware I believe. I remember
> congratulating him when HP acquired them, but I gather other than the
> money, he didn't care much for HP.
>
> Gary Luckenbaugh 
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On Oct 10, 2025, at 10:19 AM, Arnold Robbins via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:
> > 
> > HP sounds right. I know 2 of the people who did SecureWare; one of them
> > grew up down the street from me and is now a Jerusalem-based venture
> > capitalist. :-)
> > 
> > Arnold
> > 
> > GARY LUCKENBAUGH via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:
> > 
> >> There were quite a few secure products in the 80s. There was set of requirements promulgated by the Defense Intelligence Agency (defined by Mitre) for a Compartmented Mode Workstation. In the late 80s IBM, DEC, and HP had CMW offerings along with an Atlanta startup named Secure Ware that built a CMW based on a Unix system that ran on an Apple Mac. I believe it was A/UX. At IBM we licensed the Secure Ware product and had them port it to IBM's AIX.
> >> 
> >> Our group in IBM Federal was responsible for the fork of AIX that resulted from the Secure Ware port. We also were responsible for getting the product certified by the DIA. We had many joint meetings with IBM, DEC, HP and the DIA. I was IBM's representative at those meetings.
> >> 
> >> I believe HP went on to acquire Secure Ware. I asked Perplexity.AI about that and it blew a fuse. 😆
> >> 
> >> Gary Luckenbaugh
> >> 
> >> Sent from my iPhone
> >> 
> >>>> On Oct 9, 2025, at 7:58 AM, Douglas McIlroy via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:
> >>> 
> >>> When Jim Reeds and I were making the IX multilevel-secure Unix
> >>> (1987-88), an Orange-Book-compliant Unix was being made for the
> >>> government at BTL's Whippany Lab. There was some communication between
> >>> the two projects, but different objectives led to significantly
> >>> different systems.
> >>> 
> >>> Did the Whippany product become KSOS, or did DOD end up with two
> >>> "secure" Unixes?
> >>> 
> >>> Doug


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