COMPUSEC, a personal view

This paper expresses a personal view of the state of computer security technology and its practice based on 20 years of experience. The paper contains a discussion of some of the events and concepts that have influenced the technology, a discussion of how computer system architectures have changed, creating gaps in our knowledge about how to design and certify multilevel secure computer systems, and a discussion about certain myths that have grown up about the design and implementation of multilevel systems. A personal assessment of our progress in computer security and a discussion about emerging system level computer security approaches are offered