From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me
X-Spam-Level: 
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID
	autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4
X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit
X-Google-Thread: 103376,caa8ecf96e8cf189
X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public
From: Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>
Subject: Re: Trusting GNAT for security software
Date: 1998/03/02
Message-ID: <m3btvp1zo2.fsf@fred.muc.de>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 329902841
Sender: andi@fred.muc.de
References: <34F421F6.3A5FFF59@towson.edu> <34F5A906.1704@gsfc.nasa.gov>
 <34F68913.2FF865DA@cl.cam.ac.uk> <6d67j5$474$1@news.nyu.edu>
 <34F9444D.D2F588@cl.cam.ac.uk> <dewar.888758710@merv>
 <1998Mar1.142220.1@eisner>
Distribution: world
Organization: [posted via] Leibniz-Rechenzentrum, Muenchen (Germany)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1998-03-02T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen) writes:

> > Actually I think a university project, particularly one working with
> > openly available sources, would be extremely hard to subvert in the manner
> > that Marcus' paranoid thinking suggests. Many students had full access to
> > every bit of information throughtout the development.
> 
> But those involved in security work are supposed to think paranoid.
> If you don't have a list of possible attacks against which you do not
> have a provable defense, then you haven't thought hard enough.  AMD
> might have a special circuit inside their chips that recognizes code
> generated by GNAT and if it finds it is doing triple-DES squirrels
> away the key in a secret register.

Another funny thing. Most newer Intel chips (PPro+) are rumoured to have
loadable Microcode [SCO apparently once released a OS update that fixed
microcode bugs]. Now you could patch the microcode to detect some known
codes...

-Andi