Re: SELinux project

From: Trent Jaeger <jaegert_at_us.ibm.com>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 17:31:22 -0400

So you have the following reqs:

(1) Some form of Biba/BLP policy -- SELinux can provide support, but it
depends on the details of your policy. SELinux does not directly support Biba, so you'd probably have to think in TE model and map (or verify as we do).
(2) Use signatures to establish labels and encryption for secrecy -- this
is mostly outside SELinux, so it should be doable
(3) Multi-domain policies -- not supported explicitly in SELinux. If you
have administrative control over the computers in question this could be done, but it is an open task.

Trent.

---

Trent Jaeger
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
19 Skyline Drive
Hawthorne, NY 10532
jaegert@us.ibm.com
(914) 784-7225, FAX (914) 784-7595
kamal <kamalnee@iitk.ac.in>
09/15/2003 05:08 PM  

        To:     Trent Jaeger/Watson/IBM@IBMUS
        cc:     SELinux@tycho.nsa.gov
        Subject:        Re: SELinux project

Thanks a lot for the suggestions!
Our interest related to integrity is slightly different. SELinux seems to take good care of the security of the system. But consider a military environment and think about actual users. A high ranking officer has got lots of documents from juniors and his boss, some of them possibly copied from their directories, and some sent through email. Now all the documents should not appear same to him, there should be an easy classification based on integrity and confidentiality of a document. He should not unknowingly be able to move information in a way that violates Biba and BLP constraints. We also want to see how digital signatures and encryption can be tightly and transparently integrated with this, e.g. in assigning integrity level to an incoming email attachment.
Another thing in our mind is decentralization of users' confidentiality/integrity levels. I mean putting this policy on some central server. After all, users don't belong to a computer, they belong to an organization. Decentralizing parts of general TE policy seems more difficult, levels seem easier to handle. I wonder whether all this makes sense. Does it?

--
This message was distributed to subscribers of the selinux mailing list.
If you no longer wish to subscribe, send mail to majordomo@tycho.nsa.gov with
the words "unsubscribe selinux" without quotes as the message.

Received on Mon 15 Sep 2003 - 17:32:09 EDT