TrustShadow: Secure Execution of Unmodified Applications with ARM TrustZone

The rapid evolution of Internet-of-Things (IoT) technologies has led to an emerging need to make it smarter. A variety of applications now run simultaneously on an ARM-based processor. For example, devices on the edge of the Internet are provided with higher horsepower to be entrusted with storing, processing and analyzing data collected from IoT devices. This significantly improves efficiency and reduces the amount of data that needs to be transported to the cloud for data processing, analysis and storage. However, commodity OSes are prone to compromise. Once they are exploited, attackers can access the data on these devices. Since the data stored and processed on the devices can be sensitive, left untackled, this is particularly disconcerting. In this paper, we propose a new system, TrustShadow that shields legacy applications from untrusted OSes. TrustShadow takes advantage of ARM TrustZone technology and partitions resources into the secure and normal worlds. In the secure world, TrustShadow constructs a trusted execution environment for security-critical applications. This trusted environment is maintained by a lightweight runtime system that coordinates the communication between applications and the ordinary OS running in the normal world. The runtime system does not provide system services itself. Rather, it forwards requests for system services to the ordinary OS, and verifies the correctness of the responses. To demonstrate the efficiency of this design, we prototyped TrustShadow on a real chip board with ARM TrustZone support, and evaluated its performance using both microbenchmarks and real-world applications. We showed TrustShadow introduces only negligible overhead to real-world applications.Comment: MobiSys 201

Understanding drivers of aquatic ecosystem metabolism in freshwater subtropical ridge and slough wetlands

How climate and habitat drive variation in aquatic metabolism in wetlands remains uncertain. To quantify differences in seasonal aquatic metabolism among wetlands, we estimated aquatic ecosystem metabolism (gross primary productivity, GPP; ecosystem respiration, ER; net aquatic productivity, NAP) in subtropical ridge and slough wetlands of the Florida Everglades from more than 2 yr of continuously measured water column dissolved oxygen, photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), water temperature, and water depth. Gross primary productivity and ER were modeled from light, temperature, and water depth using non-linear minimization and maximum likelihood. Reaeration rates were estimated from wind speed. Dissolved oxygen was below saturation at all sites during both wet and dry seasons. Water depth interacted with vegetation to influence PAR, water temperature, and spatiotemporal patterns in aquatic metabolism. Gross primary productivity and ER were highest at the slough with lowest submerged aquatic vegetation (low-SAV slough), intermediate in the sawgrass (Cladium jamaicense) ridge site, and lowest at the slough with highest submerged aquatic vegetation (high-SAV slough). Ecosystem respiration was strongly positively correlated with GPP at the sawgrass ridge and low-SAV slough sites. Gross primary productivity increased with water temperature and PAR across all habitat types, whereas ER decreased (more respiration) with water temperature and PAR. Net aquatic productivity was negatively correlated with water temperature and positively correlated with PAR, suggesting that ER was more sensitive than GPP to water temperature. Aquatic metabolism was largely net heterotrophic in all wetlands, and high-SAV appeared to buffer seasonal variation in PAR and water temperatures that drive NAP in subtropical wetlands. Our results suggest that aquatic ecosystem metabolism in wetlands with seasonal hydrology is sensitive to changes in water depth and vegetation density that influence temperature and light. Expanding our understanding of how metabolic processes and carbon cycling in wetland ecosystems vary across gradients in hydrology, vegetation, and organic matter could enhance our understanding and protection of conditions that maximize carbon storage

Automatic Measurement of Memory Hierarchy Parameters

On modern computers, the running time of many applications is dominated by the cost of memory operations. To optimize such applications for a given platform, it is necessary to have a detailed knowledge of the memory hierarchy parameters of that platform. In practice, this information is usually poorly documented if at all. Moreover, there is growing interest in self-tuning, autonomic software systems that can optimize themselves for different platforms, and these systems must determine memory hierarchy parameters automatically without human intervention. One solution is to use micro-benchmarks to determine the parameters of the memory hierarchy. In this paper, we argue that existing micro-benchmarks are inadequate, and present novel micro-benchmarks for determining the parameters of all levels of the memory hierarchy, including registers, all caches levels and the translation look-aside buffer. We have implemented these micro-benchmarks into an integrated tool that can be ported with little effort to new platforms. We present experimental results that show that this tool successfully determines memory hierarchy parameters on many current platforms, and compare its accuracy with that of existing tools

Neutron charge radius and the Dirac equation

We consider the Dirac equation for a finite-size neutron in an external electric field. We explicitly incorporate Dirac-Pauli form factors into the Dirac equation. After a non-relativistic reduction, the Darwin-Foldy term is cancelled by a contribution from the Dirac form factor, so that the only coefficient of the external field charge density is $e/6 r^2_{En}$, i. e. the root mean square radius associated with the electric Sachs form factor . Our result is similar to a recent result of Isgur, and reconciles two apparently conflicting viewpoints about the use of the Dirac equation for the description of nucleons.Comment: 7 pages, no figures, to appear in Physical Review

Transmission Properties of the oscillating delta-function potential

We derive an exact expression for the transmission amplitude of a particle moving through a harmonically driven delta-function potential by using the method of continued-fractions within the framework of Floquet theory. We prove that the transmission through this potential as a function of the incident energy presents at most two real zeros, that its poles occur at energies $n\hbar\omega+\varepsilon^*$ ($0<Re(\varepsilon^*)<\hbar\omega$), and that the poles and zeros in the transmission amplitude come in pairs with the distance between the zeros and the poles (and their residue) decreasing with increasing energy of the incident particle. We also show the existence of non-resonant "bands" in the transmission amplitude as a function of the strength of the potential and the driving frequency.Comment: 21 pages, 12 figures, 1 tabl

Nuclear Medium Effects in the Relativistic Treatment of Quasifree Electron Scattering

Non-relativistic reduction of the S-matrix for the quasifree electron scattering process $A\left(~e, e'p~\right)A-1$ is studied in order to understand the source of differences between non-relativistic and relativistic models. We perform an effective Pauli reduction on the relativistic expression for the S-matrix in the one-photon exchange approximation. The reduction is applied to the nucleon current only; the electrons are treated fully relativistically. An expansion of the amplitude results in a power series in the nuclear potentials. The series is found to converge rapidly only if the nuclear potentials are included in the nuclear current operator. The results can be cast in a form which reproduces the non-relativistic amplitudes in the limit that the potentials are removed from the nuclear current operator. Large differences can be found between calculations which do and do not include the nuclear potentials in the different orders of the nuclear current operator. In the high missing momentum region we find that the non-relativistic calculations with potentials included in the nuclear current up to second order give results which are close to those of the fully relativistic calculation. This behavior is an indication of the importance of the medium modifications of the nuclear currents in this model, which are naturally built into the relativistic treatment of the reaction.Comment: Latex, 26 pages including 5 uuencoded postscript figures. accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. C

The Coulomb Sum and Proton-Proton Correlations in Few-Body Nuclei

In simple models of the nuclear charge operator, measurements of the Coulomb sum and the charge form factor of a nucleus directly determine the proton-proton correlations. We examine experimental results obtained for few-body nuclei at Bates and Saclay using models of the charge operator that include both one- and two-body terms. Previous analyses using one-body terms only have failed to reproduce experimental results. However, we find that the same operators which have been used to successfully describe the charge form factors also produce substantial agreement with measurements of the Coulomb sum.Comment: 11 pages, Revtex version 3.0 with 3 Postscript figures appended, ANL preprint PHY-7473-TH-9

Knocking back invasions: variable resistance and resilience to multiple cold spells in native vs. nonnative fishes

Extreme climate events can interact synergistically with invasions to dramatically alter ecosystem structure, function, and services. Yet, the effects of extreme climate events on species invasions remain unresolved. Extreme climate events may increase resources and decrease biotic resistance by causing physiological stress and/or mortality of native taxa, resulting in invasion opportunities for nonnative species. Alternatively, extreme climate events may regulate nonnative populations, preventing them from achieving dominance. We examined whether a sequence of three cold spells had a negative or positive effect on fish invasions in the coastal Everglades. We compared resistance (initial effects) and resilience (rate of recovery) to the cold spells between native fishes and the dominant nonnative invader, the Mayan cichlid, across eight populations expanding two mangroves drainages in the southern Everglades. We tracked native fish and nonnative Mayan cichlid populations for 10 yr including 3 yr pre- and 4 yr post-cold spells. In both drainages, native fishes were more resistant to the cold spells than the nonnative species. While native fishes experienced declines at only one site, nonnative Mayan numbers were reduced by 90–100% across six sites where they were abundant pre-disturbances. Four years after the last cold spell, we saw limited resilience in the affected nonnative populations. Only one of the six affected sites fully recovered, whereas the other five sites showed no recovery in Mayan cichlid numbers. The recovered site was closest to a canal, known to act as thermal refuges for nonnative fishes. In summary, cold spells can reduce nonnative abundances, but whether cold spells can effectively knock back invasions (and range expansions) by tropical/subtropical nonnative species will depend on how the frequency and severity of cold spells are affected by climate change. We propose that these mortality-causing extreme events could provide rare management opportunities late in an invasion

Relativistic Effects in the Electromagnetic Current at GeV Energies

We employ a recent approach to the non-relativistic reduction of the electromagnetic current operator in calculations of electronuclear reactions. In contrast to the traditional scheme, where approximations are made for the transferred momentum, transferred energy and initial momentum of the struck nucleon in obtaining an on-shell inspired form for the current, we treat the problem exactly for the transferred energy and transferred momentum. We calculate response functions for the reaction $^2H(e,e'p)n$ at CEBAF (TJNAF) energies and find large relativistic corrections. We also show that in Plane Wave Impulse Approximation, it is always possible to use the full operator, and we present a comparison of such a limiting case with the results incorporating relativistic effects to the first order in the initial momentum of the struck nucleon.Comment: 31 pages, 8 figures, Revte

Relativistic versus Nonrelativistic Optical Potentials in A(e,e'p)B Reactions

We investigate the role of relativistic and nonrelativistic optical potentials used in the analysis of ($e,e'p$) data. We find that the relativistic calculations produce smaller ($e,e'p$) cross sections even in the case in which both relativistic and nonrelativistic optical potentials fit equally well the elastic proton--nucleus scattering data. Compared to the nonrelativistic impulse approximation, this effect is due to a depletion in the nuclear interior of the relativistic nucleon current, which should be taken into account in the nonrelativistic treatment by a proper redefinition of the effective current operator.Comment: Added one new figure, the formalism section has been enlarged and the list of references updated. Added one appendix. This version will appear in Phys. Rev. C. Revtex 3.0, 6 figures (not included). Full postscript version of the file and figures available at http://www.nikhefk.nikhef.nl/projects/Theory/preprints