On protection in operating systems
Michael A. Harrison, Walter L. Ruzzo, Jeffrey David Ullman · ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review · 1975
A model of protection mechanisms in computing systems is presented and its appropriateness is demonstrated. The “safety” problem for protection systems under our model is to determine in a given situation whether a subject can acquire a particular right to an object. In restricted cases, one can show that this problem is decidable, i.e., there is an algorithm to determine whether a system in a particular configuration is safe. In general, and under surprisingly weak assumptions, one cannot decide if a situation is safe. Various implications of this fact are discussed.