Re:“Intel Core 2 bugs will assuredly be exploitable from use...
by vanderZwan on Friday January 05, 2018 @12:50PM
(#16080172)
The Mill computing people seem to have figured out quite a lot of elegant yet fast security solutions[0][1].
One simple example is the zero-bit. I don't have time to look up the exact details now, but IIRC, it's a simple hardware bit-flag that is part of the metadata of any value that can be read. If set, reading out that value returns zero. If not, it returns the actual value.
Data defaults to having the zero-bit set, and the only way to unset a zero bit is writing new data into whatever you want to read from. The exact mechanism is probably a bit different, but that's how I remember it.
Regardless of what the precise implementation is, the point is that by adding some smart hardware-based metadata like this in the form of bit-wise flags, you don't have to worry about having to manually wipe the data in memory once you are done with it (and have the speed benefits of not having to do so as well), yet still get all the safety benefits of never having to worry about buffer overflows and whatnot again.
One simple example is the zero-bit. I don't have time to look up the exact details now, but IIRC, it's a simple hardware bit-flag that is part of the metadata of any value that can be read. If set, reading out that value returns zero. If not, it returns the actual value.
Data defaults to having the zero-bit set, and the only way to unset a zero bit is writing new data into whatever you want to read from. The exact mechanism is probably a bit different, but that's how I remember it.
Regardless of what the precise implementation is, the point is that by adding some smart hardware-based metadata like this in the form of bit-wise flags, you don't have to worry about having to manually wipe the data in memory once you are done with it (and have the speed benefits of not having to do so as well), yet still get all the safety benefits of never having to worry about buffer overflows and whatnot again.
[0] https://millcomputing.com/
[1] https://millcomputing.com/docs/security/