“I do believe NSA is still ahead, but not by much — a handful of years”
“[A researcher] gave a talk on his then current project to prove a certain OS kernel was secure…they hoped in two years to have a proof of the OS’s correctness. What struck me during his talk was he could write down on the board, a [formula that] captured the notion of data security: if a certain function f had this property, then he would be able to assert his OS could not leak any information…At the end of his talk I asked him if he wanted a proof now that his function f satisfied the formula. He looked at me puzzled, as did everyone else. He pointed out his f was defined by his OS, so how could I possibly prove it satisfied his formula—the f was thousands of lines of code. He added they were working hard on proving this formula, and hoped to have a full proof in the next 24 months…I walked to the board and wrote out a short set theory proof to back up my claim—any f had his property…I thought he would be shocked. I thought he might be upset, or even embarrassed his formula was meaningless. He was not at all. [He] just said they would have to find another formula to prove.”
“it’s possible to focus light through opaque materials and detect objects hidden behind them, provided you know enough about the material”
This entry was posted on Monday, March 15th, 2010 at 01:41 and is filed under Communications security, Random bits, Science, Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:
Please log in to WordPress.com to post a comment to your blog.
You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change )
You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change )
Connecting to %s
Notify me of follow-up comments via email.
Why Poissonian traffic models matter more now than ever, part 1 2 3 4 5 6
Common data sets and the illusion of scientific security testing
A minimal periodic coloring theorem part 1 2 3
Dynamical bias in the dice roll
The fundamental law of statistical physics
Jaynes and the Gibbs paradox
A graded lexicographic index, part 1 2 3
Solution of second-order matrix difference equations
Birds on a wire and the Ising model
The chimera of cyberdeterrence
Martingales from finite Markov processes, part 1
Initial software release
[All Equilibrium-related posts]
[All commentary]
[Nonrandom bits]
Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.
