4 ms·

Is the government or anyone else trying to develop secure systems? I don't mean stock technology (Intel/Arm + Windows/*nix/etc.) retrofitted or 'locked down', I

Is the government or anyone else trying to develop secure systems? I don't mean stock technology (Intel/Arm + Windows/*nix/etc.) retrofitted or 'locked down', I mean new tech built from the ground up for high security. Given the exceptionally high value to foreign governents (and other actors) of breaking into US government computers, the latter approach seems like the only potential option. The stock tech just can't be secured effectively enough, IMHO. ---- EDIT: Answering my own question to a degree, here are presentations on High-Assurance Cyber Military Systems (HACMS), which apparently utilize seL4: http://www.cyber.umd.edu/sites/default/files/documents/symposium/fisher-HACMS-MD.pdf http://www.cyber.umd.edu/sites/default/files/documents/sympo... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqRdbgRPYw8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqRdbgRPYw8

paavokoya 11y ago
If you read the headlines enough, you'll notice the U.S. govt is doing the exact opposite of developing secure systems by forcing corporations to weaken their security.
- avs733 11y ago
  I think the commenter was generally referring to developing secure systems for themselves. The NSA 'owns' at least one semiconductor fab[1] in Texas, and used to (or still does) own another secure CMOS facility in Santa Clara [2]. Add in several facilities owned by defense contractors as well as the facilities at places such as Lincoln Lab. When you have the ability to develop and build your own secure technology, it would seem perfectly 'logical' to force others to use lesser, less secure hardware. [1] http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/NSA-plant-in-San-Antonio-shrouded-in-secrecy-4604109.php http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/NSA-... [2] http://www.militaryaerospace.com/articles/print/volume-9/issue-12/departments/cots-watch/nsa-seeking-new-business-for-in-house-cmos-wafer-fab.html http://www.militaryaerospace.com/articles/print/volume-9/iss...
  - hellbanner 11y ago
    End of [1]: "The NSA issued a statement acknowledging that an antenna it was using interfered with garage door openers." I didn't know antennaes could interfere with transmission.?
    - avs733 11y ago
      I would imagine it was what was coming out of the antenna... Just another one of those fantastic science/technology/journalistic chain phone calls that result in nonsense being communicated to the public.
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    Yes. Sandia and others have certified fabs for developing classified stuff. The NSA has their own developments called Government Off The Shelf (GOTS) tools. They also contract out developments from defense contractors through certifications like their Type 1 process. They keep the best stuff for themselves and defense contractors. Here's an interesting example I copied in a design at one point: https://www.nsa.gov/ia/programs/inline_media_encryptor/index.shtml https://www.nsa.gov/ia/programs/inline_media_encryptor/index... Compare that to the average tool for disk encryption. I bet the commercial one leaves off some requirements or countermeasures. ;)
- duaneb 11y ago
  They do both. One is worrying, the other is reassuring; clickbait rules dictate the former gets the headline.
mfoy_ 11y ago
You'd have to go REALLY back to basics... a lot of chipsets have backdoors themselves.. some of which the FBI ironically pushed for. So no matter how securely you make your own OS if you don't also make your own hardware it's all for naught. Also if the government started making its own computers then private suppliers would raise a fuss about "big government" and hurting private enterprise. Also can you imagine the shitstorm ensuing from: "Government insists every tech company bakes in backdoors. Government then has to create its own computers because consumer models are too insecure."
- hackuser 11y ago
  > if the government started making its own computers then private suppliers would raise a fuss I imagine they'd be designed and built by Boeing or Raytheon or some other major military contractor, just like all the other specialized government equipment.
- dbarlett 11y ago
  The NSA has their own fab at Ft. Meade [1] and pays IBM to run one in Vermont [2]. [1] http://www.militaryaerospace.com/articles/print/volume-9/issue-12/departments/cots-watch/nsa-seeking-new-business-for-in-house-cmos-wafer-fab.html http://www.militaryaerospace.com/articles/print/volume-9/iss... [2] http://www.manufacturingnews.com/news/04/0203/art1.html http://www.manufacturingnews.com/news/04/0203/art1.html
  - avs733 11y ago
    and used to have one in CA[1] and owns one in texas as well[2] [1] http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/NSA-.. http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/NSA-.... [2] http://www.militaryaerospace.com/articles/print/volume-9/iss.. http://www.militaryaerospace.com/articles/print/volume-9/iss....
  - Spooky23 11y ago
    Pretty sure the Vermont IBM facility is closed. Most of the surviving workers are at Global Foundries.
  - 11y ago
gherkin0 11y ago
Yes. One project is SeL4, which is a provably correct microkernel. I listened to a talk by one of the developers and it sounded like they were getting funding from DARPA. https://sel4.systems/About/seL4/ https://sel4.systems/About/seL4/ I also remember reading on Wikipedia about some proprietary closed-source OS that's used by the US government to work with very highly classified information. Apparently the requirement was that the kernel and every program be formally verified, so it had very limited features. IIRC, it still maintained, but newer versions support a Linux environment for less classified work. Unfortunately, I don't remember what it was called so I can't link to the page. edit: found it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XTS-400 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XTS-400 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computer_System_Evaluation_Criteria#A_.E2.80.94_Verified_protection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computer_System_Evalua... > Examples of A1-class systems are Honeywell's SCOMP, Aesec's GEMSOS, and Boeing's SNS Server.
- chatmasta 11y ago
  You mean like the kind of highly classified information that Hillary Clinton kept on her home server? :) was she running a probably secure microkernel?
  - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
    Not a provably secure microkernel, nor even a probably secure one. Nor, probably, even a microkernel at all.
    - eru 11y ago
      Might have run on a Windows NT variant. That was sort-of supposed to be a microkernel.
- joe_the_user 11y ago
  The problem is that at a certain level of government, you will have administrators who aren't technical experts and who have no interest in deferring to the opinions of technical experts. Such folks just don't want to bother with the limitations that a secure system implies, even if such a system became much more featureful than the present ones. They want their Windows/Mac and probably want it for their work-groups. It's not just a lack of technical know-how but a variety of psychological tendencies that stands against this. It's taken a long time for companies to develop UIs that people want to use but the existence of these "easy to UIs" is a barrier to any UI which requires even a small amount of training to use.
avn2109 11y ago
Somewhere in the depths of my brain I recall IBM developing a "secure" architecture from hardware up a long time ago, but the project was killed for some reason. Pretty sure HN user nickpsecurity originally posted about it.
- skissane 11y ago
  Are you thinking of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10823434 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10823434 The famed IBM "Future Systems" project (to replace the S/360-descended mainframe architecture) was a failure, but it survived by evolving into System/38, then AS/400, later renamed to i5/OS and now IBM i. Hardware-based capability security was part of the architecture.
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  Who else? :) It was this one: https://domino.research.ibm.com/library/cyberdig.nsf/papers/B9D637F6D41FD7D78525788C00525519/$File/rc25155.pdf https://domino.research.ibm.com/library/cyberdig.nsf/papers/... One of the founders and best performers of INFOSEC, Paul Karger, was on that project. Later did their smartcard OS, Caernarvon, for an anticipated EAL7 evaluation. In the past, he did MULTICS security evaluation and VAX VMM Security kernel among other things. Far as HWMAC, they sort of just dropped it on us in 2011 and I haven't heard about it since. (shrugs) Meanwhile, Cambridge already has FreeBSD running on the CHERI processor with code available and a less-aggressive, legal team. :)
arca_vorago 11y ago
There exists a series of OS'es in use in DoD/Darpa/etc that are designed from the ground up for high security, but almost all of them are closed source/proprietary, which really frustrates me. QubesOS is promising, but has many issues to work through, and minix3 is interesting, but I'm not aware of any new FOSS secure OS movements.
coroutines 11y ago
The NSA actually has a lot of useful PDFs related to hardening existing OS's up on its site that you can find through Google: Search: site:nsa.gov filetype:pdf hardening (works in DuckDuckGo as well) The search will probably get you noticed, but I remember spending like 2 days in highschool just scraping and going through every PDF I could find for useful things to know. ~

paavokoya 11y ago

If you read the headlines enough, you'll notice the U.S. govt is doing the exact opposite of developing secure systems by forcing corporations to weaken their security.

avs733 11y ago
I think the commenter was generally referring to developing secure systems for themselves. The NSA 'owns' at least one semiconductor fab[1] in Texas, and used to (or still does) own another secure CMOS facility in Santa Clara [2]. Add in several facilities owned by defense contractors as well as the facilities at places such as Lincoln Lab. When you have the ability to develop and build your own secure technology, it would seem perfectly 'logical' to force others to use lesser, less secure hardware. [1] http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/NSA-plant-in-San-Antonio-shrouded-in-secrecy-4604109.php http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/NSA-... [2] http://www.militaryaerospace.com/articles/print/volume-9/issue-12/departments/cots-watch/nsa-seeking-new-business-for-in-house-cmos-wafer-fab.html http://www.militaryaerospace.com/articles/print/volume-9/iss...
- hellbanner 11y ago
  End of [1]: "The NSA issued a statement acknowledging that an antenna it was using interfered with garage door openers." I didn't know antennaes could interfere with transmission.?
  - avs733 11y ago
    I would imagine it was what was coming out of the antenna... Just another one of those fantastic science/technology/journalistic chain phone calls that result in nonsense being communicated to the public.
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  Yes. Sandia and others have certified fabs for developing classified stuff. The NSA has their own developments called Government Off The Shelf (GOTS) tools. They also contract out developments from defense contractors through certifications like their Type 1 process. They keep the best stuff for themselves and defense contractors. Here's an interesting example I copied in a design at one point: https://www.nsa.gov/ia/programs/inline_media_encryptor/index.shtml https://www.nsa.gov/ia/programs/inline_media_encryptor/index... Compare that to the average tool for disk encryption. I bet the commercial one leaves off some requirements or countermeasures. ;)
duaneb 11y ago
They do both. One is worrying, the other is reassuring; clickbait rules dictate the former gets the headline.

mfoy_ 11y ago

You'd have to go REALLY back to basics... a lot of chipsets have backdoors themselves.. some of which the FBI ironically pushed for. So no matter how securely you make your own OS if you don't also make your own hardware it's all for naught. Also if the government started making its own computers then private suppliers would raise a fuss about "big government" and hurting private enterprise. Also can you imagine the shitstorm ensuing from: "Government insists every tech company bakes in backdoors. Government then has to create its own computers because consumer models are too insecure."

hackuser 11y ago
> if the government started making its own computers then private suppliers would raise a fuss I imagine they'd be designed and built by Boeing or Raytheon or some other major military contractor, just like all the other specialized government equipment.
dbarlett 11y ago
The NSA has their own fab at Ft. Meade [1] and pays IBM to run one in Vermont [2]. [1] http://www.militaryaerospace.com/articles/print/volume-9/issue-12/departments/cots-watch/nsa-seeking-new-business-for-in-house-cmos-wafer-fab.html http://www.militaryaerospace.com/articles/print/volume-9/iss... [2] http://www.manufacturingnews.com/news/04/0203/art1.html http://www.manufacturingnews.com/news/04/0203/art1.html
- avs733 11y ago
  and used to have one in CA[1] and owns one in texas as well[2] [1] http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/NSA-.. http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/NSA-.... [2] http://www.militaryaerospace.com/articles/print/volume-9/iss.. http://www.militaryaerospace.com/articles/print/volume-9/iss....
- Spooky23 11y ago
  Pretty sure the Vermont IBM facility is closed. Most of the surviving workers are at Global Foundries.
- 11y ago

gherkin0 11y ago

Yes. One project is SeL4, which is a provably correct microkernel. I listened to a talk by one of the developers and it sounded like they were getting funding from DARPA. https://sel4.systems/About/seL4/ https://sel4.systems/About/seL4/ I also remember reading on Wikipedia about some proprietary closed-source OS that's used by the US government to work with very highly classified information. Apparently the requirement was that the kernel and every program be formally verified, so it had very limited features. IIRC, it still maintained, but newer versions support a Linux environment for less classified work. Unfortunately, I don't remember what it was called so I can't link to the page. edit: found it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XTS-400 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XTS-400 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computer_System_Evaluation_Criteria#A_.E2.80.94_Verified_protection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computer_System_Evalua... > Examples of A1-class systems are Honeywell's SCOMP, Aesec's GEMSOS, and Boeing's SNS Server.

chatmasta 11y ago
You mean like the kind of highly classified information that Hillary Clinton kept on her home server? :) was she running a probably secure microkernel?
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  Not a provably secure microkernel, nor even a probably secure one. Nor, probably, even a microkernel at all.
  - eru 11y ago
    Might have run on a Windows NT variant. That was sort-of supposed to be a microkernel.
joe_the_user 11y ago
The problem is that at a certain level of government, you will have administrators who aren't technical experts and who have no interest in deferring to the opinions of technical experts. Such folks just don't want to bother with the limitations that a secure system implies, even if such a system became much more featureful than the present ones. They want their Windows/Mac and probably want it for their work-groups. It's not just a lack of technical know-how but a variety of psychological tendencies that stands against this. It's taken a long time for companies to develop UIs that people want to use but the existence of these "easy to UIs" is a barrier to any UI which requires even a small amount of training to use.

avn2109 11y ago

Somewhere in the depths of my brain I recall IBM developing a "secure" architecture from hardware up a long time ago, but the project was killed for some reason. Pretty sure HN user nickpsecurity originally posted about it.

skissane 11y ago
Are you thinking of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10823434 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10823434 The famed IBM "Future Systems" project (to replace the S/360-descended mainframe architecture) was a failure, but it survived by evolving into System/38, then AS/400, later renamed to i5/OS and now IBM i. Hardware-based capability security was part of the architecture.
nickpsecurity 11y ago
Who else? :) It was this one: https://domino.research.ibm.com/library/cyberdig.nsf/papers/B9D637F6D41FD7D78525788C00525519/$File/rc25155.pdf https://domino.research.ibm.com/library/cyberdig.nsf/papers/... One of the founders and best performers of INFOSEC, Paul Karger, was on that project. Later did their smartcard OS, Caernarvon, for an anticipated EAL7 evaluation. In the past, he did MULTICS security evaluation and VAX VMM Security kernel among other things. Far as HWMAC, they sort of just dropped it on us in 2011 and I haven't heard about it since. (shrugs) Meanwhile, Cambridge already has FreeBSD running on the CHERI processor with code available and a less-aggressive, legal team. :)

arca_vorago 11y ago

There exists a series of OS'es in use in DoD/Darpa/etc that are designed from the ground up for high security, but almost all of them are closed source/proprietary, which really frustrates me. QubesOS is promising, but has many issues to work through, and minix3 is interesting, but I'm not aware of any new FOSS secure OS movements.

coroutines 11y ago

The NSA actually has a lot of useful PDFs related to hardening existing OS's up on its site that you can find through Google: Search: site:nsa.gov filetype:pdf hardening (works in DuckDuckGo as well) The search will probably get you noticed, but I remember spending like 2 days in highschool just scraping and going through every PDF I could find for useful things to know. ~