TY - GEN
T1 - Directed information and the NRL network pump
AU - Gorantla, Siva K.
AU - Kadloor, Sachin
AU - Coleman, Todd P.
AU - Kiyavash, Negar
AU - Moskowitz, Ira S.
AU - Kang, Myong H.
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - The NRL Network Pump®, or Pump, is a standard for mitigating covert channels that arise in a multi-level secure (MLS) system when a high user (HU) sends acknowledgements to a low user (LU). The issue here is that HU can encode information in the "timings" of the acknowledgements. The Pump aims at mitigating the covert timing channel by introducing buffering between HU and LU, as well as adding noise to the acknowledgment timings. Here, for the first time, we model the workings of the Pump in certain situations, as a communication system with feedback and use then this novel perspective to derive a upper bound on the rate of the covert channel between HU and LU in the Pump, in specific situations. This upper bound is presented in terms of a directed information flow over the dynamics of the system.
AB - The NRL Network Pump®, or Pump, is a standard for mitigating covert channels that arise in a multi-level secure (MLS) system when a high user (HU) sends acknowledgements to a low user (LU). The issue here is that HU can encode information in the "timings" of the acknowledgements. The Pump aims at mitigating the covert timing channel by introducing buffering between HU and LU, as well as adding noise to the acknowledgment timings. Here, for the first time, we model the workings of the Pump in certain situations, as a communication system with feedback and use then this novel perspective to derive a upper bound on the rate of the covert channel between HU and LU in the Pump, in specific situations. This upper bound is presented in terms of a directed information flow over the dynamics of the system.
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U2 - 10.1109/ISITA.2010.5649143
DO - 10.1109/ISITA.2010.5649143
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:78651322211
SN - 9781424460175
T3 - ISITA/ISSSTA 2010 - 2010 International Symposium on Information Theory and Its Applications
SP - 343
EP - 348
BT - ISITA/ISSSTA 2010 - 2010 International Symposium on Information Theory and Its Applications
T2 - 2010 20th International Symposium on Information Theory and Its Applications, ISITA 2010 and the 2010 20th International Symposium on Spread Spectrum Techniques and Applications, ISSSTA 2010
Y2 - 17 October 2010 through 20 October 2010
ER -