Trusted ⇐ trustworthy ⇐ proof—position paper

Authors

Gernot Heiser

    School of Computer Science and Engineering
    University of New South Wales
    Sydney 2052 Australia
    
    NICTA, Sydney, Australia

    Open Kernel Labs, Sydney, Australia

Abstract

Trusted computing is important, but we argue that it remains an illusion as long as the underlying trusted computing base (TCB) is not trustworthy. We observe that present approaches to trusted computing do not really address this issue, but are trusting TCBs which have not been shown to deserve this trust. We argue that only mathematical proof can ensure the trustworthiness of the TCB. In short: trust requires trustworthiness, which in turn requires proof. We also show that this is achievable.

BibTeX Entry

  @inproceedings{Heiser_08a,
    publisher        = {Vieweg+Teubner},
    isbn             = {978-8348-0794-6},
    title            = {Trusted {$\Leftarrow$} Trustworthy {$\Leftarrow$} Proof---Position Paper},
    booktitle        = { 2nd Conf. Future Trust Comput.},
    author           = {Gernot Heiser},
    year             = {2009},
    month            = {Jul},
    editor           = {D. Gawrock and H Raimer and A.-R. Sadeghi and C. Vishik},
    address          = {Berlin, Germany},
    pages            = {55--59}
  }

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• Heiser_08a.pdf