[cap-talk] Assessing security threats of looping constructs

[Sandro Magi]

Attempts to quantify the information leakage rate of looping constructs
that could be used to mount an attack.

http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/2008

(pdf: http://www.dcs.qmul.ac.uk/~pm/Papers/boundsWhile.pdf)

  There is a clear intuitive connection between the notion of
  leakage of information in a program and concepts from information
  theory. This intuition has not been satisfactorily
  pinned down, until now. In particular, previous information theoretic
  models of programs are imprecise, due to their
  overly conservative treatment of looping constructs. In this
  paper we provide the first precise information-theoretic semantics
  of looping constructs. Our semantics describes both
  the amount and rate of leakage; if either is small enough,
  then a program might be deemed “secure”. Using the semantics
  we provide an investigation and classification of
  bounded and unbounded covert channels.