[Colloq] Thesis Proposal: Title: Retrofitting Privacy into Operating Systems | Speaker: Kaan Onarlioglu | Date: 5/31/16 Time: 2-3pm Location: 132H Nightingale Hall

[Walker, Lashauna]

Title: Retrofitting Privacy into Operating Systems
Speaker: Kaan Onarlioglu
Date: Tuesday, May 31
Time: 2:00pm-3:00pm
Location: 132H, Nightingale Hall

Abstract:

With the scale of sensitive information being processed and stored on computers
today, implementing and maintaining application-specific privacy features is
inefficient and bug prone. Consequently, we observe that the operating system is
a natural place to implement novel privacy defenses against emerging
threats. Thanks to its supervisor role, the operating system is able to
introspect on all userspace, providing strong security guarantees to
applications. Furthermore, due to its position as a common platform that all
applications run on, the operating system is capable of offering general privacy
services to programs in an application-agnostic manner.

While it would be a relatively straightforward task to build a secure operating
system from the ground up with this philosophy in mind, a significant challenge
is to design privacy-enhancing techniques compatible with already
widely-deployed operating systems, which also do not require modifications to
existing software running on the system. Moreover, defenses that are performant,
user friendly, and easy to deploy are more likely to have practical impact.

In this thesis, we present three systems to retrofit novel privacy-enhancing
techniques into traditional operating systems: 1) PrivExec is an operating
system service that allows a "private browsing mode-like" execution platform for
arbitrary applications. 2) Hive is a hidden volume encryption scheme that offers
plausibly deniable disk encryption against strong adversaries with multiple disk
snapshot capabilities. 3) Overhaul is a dynamic, input-driven access control
architecture, where access to privacy-sensitive resources is mediated based on
the temporal proximity of user interactions to access requests, and requests are
communicated back to the user via visual alerts. We present abstract, operating
system-independent designs for all three systems, and then provide concrete
Linux implementations which demonstrate that low-complexity, low-overhead, and
high-usability privacy defenses could be integrated into existing operating
systems.

Committee:
Engin Kirda
William Robertson
Christo Wilson
Manuel Egele (Boston University)

Personal Web Page:
http://www.onarlioglu.com/

Thesis Proposal Web Page:
http://www.onarlioglu.com/thesis/

Thank You.

LaShauna Walker
Events and Administrative Specialist
College of Computer and Information Science
Northeastern University
617-373-2763
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