Secure Information Flow via Stripping and Fast Simulation

Authors

Rafael H. Alpizar, Florida International UniversityFollow

Document Type

Dissertation

Major/Program

Computer Science

First Advisor's Name

Geoffrey Smith

First Advisor's Committee Title

Committee Chair

Second Advisor's Name

Jinpeng Wei

Third Advisor's Name

Peter Clarke

Fourth Advisor's Name

Dev Roy

Date of Defense

2-28-2011

Abstract

Type systems for secure information flow aim to prevent a program from leaking information from H (high) to L (low) variables. Traditionally, bisimulation has been the prevalent technique for proving the soundness of such systems. This work intro- duces a new proof technique based on stripping and fast simulation, and shows that it can be applied in a number of cases where bisimulation fails. We present a progressive development of this technique over a representative sample of languages includ- ing a simple imperative language (core theory), a multiprocessing nondeterministic language, a probabilistic language, and a language with cryptographic primitives.

In the core theory we illustrate the key concepts of this technique in a basic setting. A fast low simulation in the context of transition systems is a binary relation where simulating states can match the moves of simulated states while maintaining the equivalence of low variables; stripping is a function that removes high commands from programs. We show that we can prove secure information flow by arguing that the stripping relation is a fast low simulation.

We then extend the core theory to an abstract distributed language under a nondeterministic scheduler. Next, we extend to a probabilistic language with a random assignment command; we generalize fast simulation to the setting of discrete time Markov Chains, and prove approximate probabilistic noninterference. Finally, we introduce cryptographic primitives into the probabilistic language and prove computational noninterference, provided that the underling encryption scheme is secure.

Identifier

FI11042705

Recommended Citation

Alpizar, Rafael H., "Secure Information Flow via Stripping and Fast Simulation" (2011). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 366.
https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/366