On Wednesday 30 June 2004 12:00, Michael S Hines allegedly wrote: <snip>
> And then a thought question - in message passing operating systems > (those that respond to external stimuli, or internal message queues) > - if one can inject messages into the processing queue, can't one in > essence 'capture the flag'? The short version of a very long answer is: "It's certainly possible, but we've been securing message-based systems for a long time and understand the attacks and defenses. Any well-designed message-based system includes controls that preserve the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the system. Some even include audit trails, etc." Yet we see message passing systems as > middleware (and OS core technology in some cases) to facilitate cross > platform interfaces. Aren't we introducing inherient security flaws > in the process? Yes. See above. Google for "CORBASec", "DCE Security Service," MQSecure. Go to www.w3c.org, www.oasis-open.org, www.projectliberty.org, www.ws-i.org, etc. for the work that's being done on securing Web services. Then go to http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/ and search on terms like Kerberos, SSL, TLS, IPSec, etc. Then, see _Applied_Cryptography_ and _Practical_Cryptography . . . You are absolutely correct that, left unprotected, message passing systems are subject to *all* *sorts* of attacks. The good news is that there are lots of very smart people working on securing them. Cheers, George Capehart -- George W. Capehart Key fingerprint: 3145 104D 9579 26DA DBC7 CDD0 9AE1 8C9C DD70 34EA "With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine." -- RFC 1925
