The trusted path between SMITE and the user

Abstract

If signaling channels can only be driven by a trusted path, they cannot be exploited by trojan horses in untrusted software. To this end, the SMITE secure computer system provides a general-purpose trusted path, based on a screen editor, which would act as the users' normal interface to the system. The feasibility of the approach relies on the use of a sympathetic computer architecture, which supports a fine grain of protection. The authors describe the trusted path and the user interface of the SMITE system. They discuss the formal specification of the display functions. They examine the use of SMITE for high-assurance applications.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>