info please part 2

[Chris Wright]

* Paris Stefas (parisstc at hotmail.com) wrote:
> 
> freebsd ,earlier Solaris 8 but was a bit slow). So in my paper i am trying
> to bring up the advantages of a trusted environment and test for several
> desadvantages that may occur ( such as network and host performance towards
> known operating systems ). I have located theory about trusted environments
> but i think that the community lacks documentation that concerns performance
> , stability and other issues that may affect the use and the acceptance of
> these systems. I'll try to figure this out with the best way i can and i
> will sure make public whatever results i get.

Yes, the disadvantages are important as they underline part of the slow
uptake of trusted systems.  Considering in the past trusted systems
often went through lengthy certification processes (for things like
Orange Book, or Common Criteria), the systems were often lagging behind
in terms of both software and hardware.  More contemporary projects like
TrustedBSD and LSM are operating much closer with current development
efforts, and new ways of evaluating assurance may help remove some of
the headaches that certification brings along.

For performance, this really depends on the specific technology.  A
poorly coded policy that uses a well optimized framework can still have
poor performance.  I recall seeing some performance numbers in one of the
TrustedBSD papers.  Also, LSM performance numbers can be found at
<http://lsm.immunix.org/docs/lsm-usenix-2002/html/node19.html>.

Another important consideration is ease of administration.  With an
improved security infrastructure, there is likely more administrative
overhead.  And more importantly, with the extra knobs to twist one must
make sure that the system _is_ actually more secure.

cheers,
-chris
-- 
Linux Security Modules     http://lsm.immunix.org     http://lsm.bkbits.net

To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo at trustedbsd.org
with "unsubscribe trustedbsd-discuss" in the body of the message