A pump for rapid, reliable, secure communication

Published 1 January 1993Open access

Myong Kang, Ira S. Moskowitz

Citations145

TL;DR

By adding random delays to the acknowledgment stream, it is shown how to further reduce the covert channel capacity even in the presence of cooperating Trojan horses in both the high and low systems.

Abstract

Communication from a low- to a high-level system without acknowledgements will be unreliable; with acknowledgements, it can be insecure. We propose to provide quantifiable security, acceptable reliability, and minimal performance penalties by interposing a device (called the Pump) to push messages to the high system and provide a controlled stream of acknowledgements to the low system.

Keywords

Computer ScienceSocial Sciences

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