Scott McNealy's JavaOne Keynote

Besides doing the obligatory competition-bashing, McNealy and Miko Matsumura raise important security issues for the programming community

By Erica Rex, JavaWorld

San Francisco (April 3, 1997) -- Scott McNealy (chairman, CEO, and president of Sun Microsystems) prefaced his Thursday morning speech by talking about how the computing world has changed in the past few years, and discussing new directions.

Sun's Scott McNealy pointed out how Windows used to be the number-one platform -- but now the Web's in charge

"A few years ago, Windows was the number-one unit-volume platform on the market," said McNealy. "Now that's changed, and the Web's in charge. A few years ago, Microsoft would be giving the keynote in the ballroom, not in a second-rate breakout room across the street," McNealy said, referring to Microsoft chairman Bill Gates' talk at a software trade show the night before.

"My mom said to me this morning, 'Be nice to Bill today,'" McNealy grimaced. "But I just can't. Who can I pick on if I can't pick on Bill? DEC?"

Smiling, the Sun Chairman continued with his trademark barbs at the industry.

McNealy proposed: "If the Academy Awards ceremony were held at JavaOne, these are the awards I would give for:

Best horror movie: Microsoft security

Best tragedy: Apple

Best romantic comedy: Ellison does Apple

Best sci-fi: your applets running on a Pentium

Best fictional screenplay: Microsoft on the Internet

Best one-liner adaptation: Microsoft saying 'give me your money'

Best sound: Microsoft demos crashing

Best cartoon: Bob

Best screenplay: Java by James Gosling

Posthumous lifetime achievement: SGI

Staying Open
McNealy continued: "People talk about the hijacking of Java, about how to prevent Java from becoming like Unix. If Unix has hurt Sun in the last fifteen years, all I can say is I hope Java hurts us like that! We have a strong sense of duty, of stewardship of Java. Remember we weren't in charge of what happened with Unix -- AT&T was. Sun has always been committed to an open interface. I grew up in the auto industry. You'll notice that GM didn't patent where the brake pedal would be on their cars. And you'll also notice that bumpers are all built at the same level so that when someone bashes you, the bumper doesn't bash your neck."

McNealy sees the whole range of networking -- from smart cards to supercomputers -- as Java's market

Fighting against the proprietary OS and the proprietary user-interface has been an uphill battle for Sun. "We've been pushing uphill against proprietary systems for 15 years. Then the Web happened. It was an open interface, whether intended or not."

McNealy said: "We decided with the JDK that we would find a way to make use of the best that the industry had to offer -- we would license the best of everyone else's R&D, add it to the JDK, and make sure that it was available free to those people who were building applications. Developers would not be sued for using the best technology. There are no hidden agendas. It's the advantage of the Unix space -- we learned through Unix how to keep the the system open. We don't want a process that coagulates."

Proprietary computing platforms are gone, McNealy noted. "Wang, DEC, Apple -- no one wants to spend money on a limited platform where every time they want to use a new application they have to buy a new machine. The Web is where the energy is. The Web is now the customer and is in charge."

Miko Matsumura, a JavaSoft engineer, visited "The Outer Limits" to demonstrate the scary reality of security threats

The Scaleable Java Future
Said McNealy: "We're seeing the whole range of networking as our market, from smart cards to supercomputers. On the enterprise side, we sell servers. But the ultimate thin client is the smart card. Gemplus sells one million smart cards per day, including weekends."

To demonstrate the potential of the ultimate thin client chip (Java chip) embedded in a device, McNealy held up a clear Swatch. "This watch is used on ski slopes in Switzerland. There's a proximity reader at the bottom of the slope. A skier wearing the watch goes to the lift, the reader reads the chip in the watch, debits his account for one lift ticket, and unlocks the turnstile."

The Issue of Security
Security has been one of the emphatic messages all along. McNealy displayed a slide about ActiveX: ActiveX = Java + Porting + Memory + Leaks + Viruses. To illustrate the problems that less-sound languages pose when it comes to secure transactions and commerce over the Internet, Miko Matsumura, a JavaSoft engineer, took the floor to demonstrate a program built by Fred McLain, author of the original "Internet Exploder."

"The Internet Exploder shuts off your machine when you visit the Web page," said Matsumura.

Matsumura demonstrated McLain's latest creation, a site called "The Outer Limits," whose Web page includes an ActiveX application that does nefarious things when a user visits the pages and follows an innocent-looking hypertext link. "Fred will remove this ActiveX site from the Internet as soon as the demo is complete," said Matsumura, "and after the demo I think you'll see why."

Matsumura clicked on a link on the Outer Limits page, and after he accepted a certificate for the ActiveX application, the browser began downloading and executing: first playing a multimedia demo and then systematically grabbing keyboard control, formatting a disk, starting Quicken and examining checkbook information, and then launching a tax application and displaying the user's tax records.

"Not only can it manipulate the books, but such an ActiveX control could then call up the person's tax return, manipulate the numbers, and -- now that we have electronic tax filing -- submit it to the IRS. Someone could get in serious trouble," said Matsumura.

"This is written in ActiveX, and everything you see in this demo is absolutely true. Nothing is cached," he continued, noting that the demo had been started from a cold boot.

Matsumura stressed that security threats are real, reinforced the theme that Java -- architected with security in mind -- is best prepared to meet the challenge, and suggested that ActiveX is an invitation to security breaches.

Matsumura said: "There's an automated virus out there called 'Pandemonium' that basically crawls all over the Internet looking for weaknesses. If it finds a way into your system, it can crash it and rewrite the hard drive before you know it. My personal favorite is the 'Moldavia' hack. If you stumble across the Web page, it shuts the speaker off of your modem, disengages the local link to the ISP, and then dials an ISP in Moldavia. "

McNealy wrapped up the talk by underscoring the importance of security. "Security is a good idea," said McNealy. "No one in the auto industry looked askance when seatbelts were introduced. They were automatically considered to be a good feature."

He concluded: "With Java, the network is built into the DNA of the architecture. It is the obvious choice for a networked world. You don't have to go out and replace hardware each time you run new programs. Java applications run on all legacy platforms. And it's safe."

Resources

• McNealy's bio http://java.sun.com/javaone/keynote.html#smcnealy

April 3, 1997	Complete Contents