Re:Constantine: Automatic side-channel resistance using data...
by titzer on Saturday May 08, 2021 @12:15AM
(#27083798)
I read that too, and I am mystified that they could make such a broad claim, when clearly their technique applies only very narrowly, i.e. to a process leaking its own secrets by encoding them in its own timing behavior. It's very poorly worded.
> we present Constantine, a compiler-based system to automatically harden programs against microarchitectural side channels [...]
> secret dependent control and data flows are completely linearized (i.e., all involved code/data accesses are always executed).
Their goal is to hide microarchitectural events from a passive or active observer. As a side note, the VUSec research group helped discover microarchitectural side channels such as Rogue In-Flight Data Load [0] and I'm sure they know the difference between earlier work on timing and microarchitectural side channels.
https://mdsattacks.com/files/ridl.pdf