[e-lang] Side Channels (was: E-on-Common-Lisp now available)

[Jed at Webstart]

At 07:50 AM 5/22/2005, Mark Miller wrote:

>...Preventing side channels is harder than denial of service and easier 
>than covert channels, and perhaps should be addressed at some intermediate 
>granularity.

I've been following this thread with interest though not with complete 
understanding - as part of checking on my general skepticism about language 
enforcement of domain boundaries between shared memory objects 
(methods).  The above sentence puzzles me a bit.  Isn't a "side channel" a 
form of covert channel?  If so how could preventing side channels be more 
difficult than preventing covert channels?

Are you assuming zeroing or otherwise patterning of memory in garbage 
collection as a way to minimize side channels through garbage 
collection?  Sorry if I missed a mention of that.

--Jed http://www.webstart.com/jed/