"distrusted computing" entries

A few weeks ago, I wrote about postmodern computing, and characterized it as the computing in a world of distrust.

This morning, I read Steve Bellovin’s blog post, What Must We Trust? — Bellovin explains that “modern” (my word) security is founded on the idea of a “Trusted Computing Base” (TCB), defined (in part) in the United States’ Defense Department’s Orange Book. There were parts of a system that you had to trust, and you had to guard their integrity vigilantly: the kernel, certainly, but also specific configuration files, executables, and so on.

The TCB has always been problematic, particularly since (at least initially) it did not consider the problem of network connections. But networking aside, Bellovin argues that recent events have blown the idea of a “trusted” system to bits. We’ve seen attacks against (Bellovin’s list) batteries, webcams, USB, and more. If Andromedans (Bellovin doesn’t want to say NSA) have managed to infiltrate our disk drives, what can trust mean? And it would be naive to think that this stops with devices that have disk drives. Our devices, from Fitbits to data centers, have been pwnd even before they’re built. Read more…