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I suspect that Java, when it gets its security API, may be a good candidate for this kind of system. It's already got high level socket I/O, and with a bignum package and some basic crypto primitives like one way functions, you could do a lot with it. You still have the problem of trading off safety for utility, though.
I like Java too, however it is getting to be a systems programming language. In my experience people are irrationally scared of it, too (while happily tapping their secrets into MS-word, of course :-) What I have in mind is more obviously restricted, and more like a programmable calculator (with bignums and buttons marked "DES") - no sockets, no files, no system calls, etc. Just number-crunching. I take the point about Safe-TCL, but there must be some way of doing this in a way that enough people think it's safe to run. Cheers, Frank O'Dwyer.