Making information flow explicit in HiStar

  • Authors:
  • Nickolai Zeldovich;Silas Boyd-Wickizer;Eddie Kohler;David Mazières

  • Affiliations:
  • Stanford University;Stanford University;University of California, Los Angeles;Stanford University

  • Venue:
  • OSDI '06 Proceedings of the 7th USENIX Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation - Volume 7
  • Year:
  • 2006

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

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 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.