Serberus: Protecting Cryptographic Code from Spectres at Compile-Time

We present Serberus, the first comprehensive mitigation for hardening constant-time (CT) code against Spectre attacks (involving the PHT, BTB, RSB, STL and/or PSF speculation primitives) on existing hardware. Serberus is based on three insights. First, some hardware control-flow integrity (CFI) protections restrict transient control-flow to the extent that it may be comprehensively considered by software analyses. Second, conformance to the accepted CT code discipline permits two code patterns that are unsafe in the post-Spectre era. Third, once these code patterns are addressed, all Spectre leakage of secrets in CT programs can be attributed to one of four classes of taint primitives--instructions that can transiently assign a secret value to a publicly-typed register. We evaluate Serberus on cryptographic primitives in the OpenSSL, Libsodium, and HACL* libraries. Serberus introduces 21.3% runtime overhead on average, compared to 24.9% for the next closest state-of-the-art software mitigation, which is less secure.Comment: Authors' version; to appear in the Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P) 202

Exorcising Spectres with Secure Compilers

Attackers can access sensitive information of programs by exploiting the side-effects of speculatively-executed instructions using Spectre attacks. To mitigate theses attacks, popular compilers deployed a wide range of countermeasures. The security of these countermeasures, however, has not been ascertained: while some of them are believed to be secure, others are known to be insecure and result in vulnerable programs. To reason about the security guarantees of these compiler-inserted countermeasures, this paper presents a framework comprising several secure compilation criteria characterizing when compilers produce code resistant against Spectre attacks. With this framework, we perform a comprehensive security analysis of compiler-level countermeasures against Spectre attacks implemented in major compilers. This work provides sound foundations to formally reason about the security of compiler-level countermeasures against Spectre attacks as well as the first proofs of security and insecurity of said countermeasures

Introduction to the Phillips Machine and the Analogue Computing Tradition in Economics

In this paper I try to argue for the desirability of analog computation in economics from a variety of perspectives, using the example of the Phillips Machine. Ultimately, a case is made for the underpinning of both analog and digital computing theory in constructive mathematics. Some conceptual confusion in the meaning of analog computing and its non-reliance on the theory of numerical analysis is also discussed.

Flujos espectrales de la post-conciencia en Solar Bones (2016), de Mike McCormack

This article analyses Mike McCormack’s novel Solar Bones (2016) which narrates in a run-on sentence Marcus Conway’s everyday life within the rural context of a 2008 Celtic Tiger Ireland about to collapse. Drawing upon the narratological precepts of experimental writing, especially the use of streams of consciousness, and Derrida’s hauntology, this article argues that McCormack’s novel charts tensions of coherence and collapse in post-Celtic Tiger fiction. The narration takes place within a post- perspective as Marcus’s ghost brings it into existence. The experimentation with streams of post-consciousness and spectrality provides McCormack with valid aesthetic mechanisms to respond in fiction to Celtic Tiger concerns.Este artículo analiza la novela Solar Bones (2016), de Mike McCormack, que narra en una única frase la vida de Marcus Conway dentro del contexto del Tigre Celta irlandés de 2008, a punto de colapsar. Se adoptan los preceptos narratológicos de la escritura experimental, especialmente el uso de flujos de conciencia, y la teoría de la hauntología de Derrida, para demostrar que la novela representa una tensión entre coherencia y colapso en la ficción post-Tigre Celta. La narración discurre desde una perspectiva post- pues el espectro de Marcus la hace realidad. La experimentación con flujos de post-conciencia y la hauntología permiten a McCormack desarrollar mecanismos estéticos para dar respuesta a problemas derivados del fenómeno del Tigre Celta

The Phillips Machine, The Analogue Computing Traditoin in Economics and Computability

In this paper I try to argue for the desirability of analog computation in economics from a variety of perspectives, using the example of the Phillips Machine. Ultimately, a case is made for the underpinning of both analog and digital computing theory in constructive mathematics. Some conceptual confusion in the meaning of analog computing and its non-reliance on the theory of numerical analysis is also discussed. Digital computing has its mathematical foundations in (classical) recursion theory and constructive mathematics. The implicit, working, assumption of those who practice the noble art of analog computing may well be that the mathematical foundations of their subject is as sound as the foundations of the real analysis. That, in turn, implies a reliance on the soundness of set theory plus the axiom of choice. This is, surely, seriously disturbing from a computation point of view. Therefore, in this paper, I seek to locate a foundation for analog computing in exhibiting some tentative dualities with results that are analogous to those that are standard in computability theory. The main question, from the point of view of economics, is whether the Phillips Machine, as an analog computer, has universal computing properties. The conjectured answer is in the negative.Phillips Machine, Analogue Computation, Digital Computation, Computability, General Purpose Analogue Computer

A tale of two capitalisms: preliminary spatial and historical comparisons of homicide rates in Western Europe and the USA

This article examines comparative homicide rates in the United States and Western Europe in an era of increasingly globalized neoliberal economics. The main finding of this preliminary analysis is that historical and spatial correlations between distinct forms of political economy and homicide rates are consistent enough to suggest that social democratic regimes are more successful at fostering the socio-cultural conditions necessary for reduced homicide rates. Thus Western Europe and all continents and nations should approach the importation of American neo-liberal economic policies with extreme caution. The article concludes by suggesting that the indirect but crucial causal connection between political economy and homicide rates, prematurely pushed into the background of criminological thought during the ‘cultural turn’, should be returned to the foreground