Making information flow explicit in HiStar

Nickolai Zeldovich, Silas Boyd-Wickizer, Eddie Kohler, David Mazières
2011 Communications of the ACM  
HiStar is a new operating system designed to minimize the amount of code that must be trusted. HiStar provides strict information flow control, which allows users to specify precise data security policies without unduly limiting the structure of applications. HiStar's security features make it possible to implement a Unix-like environment with acceptable performance almost entirely in an untrusted user-level library. The system has no notion of superuser and no fully trusted code other than the
more » ... kernel. HiStar's features permit several novel applications, including an entirely untrusted login process, separation of data between virtual private networks, and privacypreserving, untrusted virus scanners. Address Space Segments Process P {p w 0, 1} Return Gate {p r , p w , 1} Clearance: {r 0, 2} Internal Container {p r 3, p w 0, 1} Address Space
doi:10.1145/2018396.2018419 fatcat:cfyia3pesnesthcyxvgvigtiwq