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I considered doing it just to run security-critical apps on CPU's like CHERI that I couldn't get in ASIC form: https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/security/ctsrd

I considered doing it just to run security-critical apps on CPU's like CHERI that I couldn't get in ASIC form: https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/security/ctsrd/cheri/ https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/security/ctsrd/cheri/ Slow, $2000-a-unit hardware might be worth it if it makes your OS close to unhackable. I'd just have to make sure apps are lean and efficient. I already favor those, though. :) Also, there's been work in "instruction set randomization" that obfuscates the CPU itself to reduce odds malware will work. Mostly widely-deployed, non-custom attacks but might stop some custom attackers, too. https://www.ics.forth.gr/_publications/papadog-asist-ccs.pdf https://www.ics.forth.gr/_publications/papadog-asist-ccs.pdf Older work was useful for making RAM and other things either untrusted or less trusted with crypto setups. Joshua Edmison did one of those with a nice survey of others: https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/29244/edmison_joshua_dissertation.pdf https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/29244/e... Finally, Meltdown/Spectre created lots of designs recently to plug timing channels. Too many to even track. Here's the first one I found from my submissions: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.07706.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.07706.pdf

petra 8y ago
Considering the implications of a widely available unhackable computer on real security, crime and politics, and that many powerful people/organizations are working to prevent distribution of this technology, do you really think it would become available ? how ?
- nickpsecurity 8y ago
  Computers that are ridiculously hard to hack and methods for building them have been available for some time. NSA used to evaluate them for years on end trying to hack them. If they passed the test, the got the TCSEC A1-class label for verified[-as-possible] security. SCOMP/STOP, GEMSOS, Boeing SNS Server, LOCK, and KeyKOS w/ KeySAFE are examples of systems designed with such techniques or certified. I think STOP-based XTS-400 and Boeing SNS Servers have been in deployment for decades now without any reported hacks. They were on the munitions list for export restriction (idk if enforced), some companies sell high-security to defense only, and they all cost a ton of money if proprietary. Under newer standards and techniques, examples include INTEGRITY-178B, Perseus Security Framework (eg Turaya Desktop), seL4, Muen hypervisor, and ProvenCore. Two of those are open source with one having pieces that were released. On hardware side, the groups developing it often openly describe the stuff where anyone with money can implement it. Some openly release it like CHERI CPU w/ FreeBSD. Some commercial products making every instruction safe like CoreGuard. So, it's not a question of whether people will develop and sell this stuff. They've been developing this stuff since computer security was invented back in the 1970's. It was sometimes the inventors of INFOSEC developing and evangelizing it. Businesses didn't buy the stuff for a variety of reasons that had nothing to do with its security. Sometimes, esp with companies like Apple or Google, they could clearly afford the hardware or software, it was usable for some to all of their use case, and they just didn't build or buy it for arbitrary reasons of management. Most stuff they do in-house is worse than published, non-patented designs which is just more ridiculous. DARPA, NSF, and other US government agencies continue to fund the majority of high-security/reliability tech that gets produced commercially and/or for FOSS. These are different groups than the SIGINT people (i.e. BULLRUN) that want to hack everything. Also, they might be putting one backdoor in the closed ones for themselves while otherwise leaving it ultra-secure against everyone else. That's what I've always figured. Lots of it is OSS/FOSS, though, so that's easier to look at.

petra 8y ago

Considering the implications of a widely available unhackable computer on real security, crime and politics, and that many powerful people/organizations are working to prevent distribution of this technology, do you really think it would become available ? how ?

nickpsecurity 8y ago
Computers that are ridiculously hard to hack and methods for building them have been available for some time. NSA used to evaluate them for years on end trying to hack them. If they passed the test, the got the TCSEC A1-class label for verified[-as-possible] security. SCOMP/STOP, GEMSOS, Boeing SNS Server, LOCK, and KeyKOS w/ KeySAFE are examples of systems designed with such techniques or certified. I think STOP-based XTS-400 and Boeing SNS Servers have been in deployment for decades now without any reported hacks. They were on the munitions list for export restriction (idk if enforced), some companies sell high-security to defense only, and they all cost a ton of money if proprietary. Under newer standards and techniques, examples include INTEGRITY-178B, Perseus Security Framework (eg Turaya Desktop), seL4, Muen hypervisor, and ProvenCore. Two of those are open source with one having pieces that were released. On hardware side, the groups developing it often openly describe the stuff where anyone with money can implement it. Some openly release it like CHERI CPU w/ FreeBSD. Some commercial products making every instruction safe like CoreGuard. So, it's not a question of whether people will develop and sell this stuff. They've been developing this stuff since computer security was invented back in the 1970's. It was sometimes the inventors of INFOSEC developing and evangelizing it. Businesses didn't buy the stuff for a variety of reasons that had nothing to do with its security. Sometimes, esp with companies like Apple or Google, they could clearly afford the hardware or software, it was usable for some to all of their use case, and they just didn't build or buy it for arbitrary reasons of management. Most stuff they do in-house is worse than published, non-patented designs which is just more ridiculous. DARPA, NSF, and other US government agencies continue to fund the majority of high-security/reliability tech that gets produced commercially and/or for FOSS. These are different groups than the SIGINT people (i.e. BULLRUN) that want to hack everything. Also, they might be putting one backdoor in the closed ones for themselves while otherwise leaving it ultra-secure against everyone else. That's what I've always figured. Lots of it is OSS/FOSS, though, so that's easier to look at.