[atlas] integrity checks for the Atlas software?

No, this isn't possible. Or rather, it's not feasible with
currently-existing software. The *only* way to have any kind of remote
assurance of specific software running is through remote attestation,
meaning that you have trusted hardware (e.g. a TPM) that can sign a
statement that the machine m is running a certain trusted
BIOS/EFI/whatever, that signs a statement that the computer is running a
certain trusted bootloader, and so on, creating a chain of
trusted signatures all the way through the OS and hypervisor certifying
that a specific VM is running and can't be interfered with. As far as I
know that full software stack doesn't exist at this point, and it arguably
shouldn't exist/be used in most cases (see Google results for «remote
attestation»). Short of that, there's no way to guarantee that certain code
is running unmodified. As soon as the user/owner/hacker/rogue datacenter
employee is able to modify anything below the VM in the stack without being
detected, they can falsify whatever they want (for example, the hypervisor
could be programmed such that certain instructions are stored correctly in
memory correctly, but when executing the code it's silently swapped out).
It may be possible to make this hard, and even hard enough to be considered
acceptable for Atlas (though said protection may not even be considered
necessary -- what's our threat model here?), but it can't be made
impossible for a determined-enough attacker.

On Tuesday, January 12, 2016, Tanner Ryan <canadatechguy at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think that is completely possible.
>
> The only issue is that it will take up far more resources validating the
> integrity of the code (which could be used for measurements).
>
> On Tuesday, 12 January 2016, Wilfried Woeber <woeber at cc.univie.ac.at
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','woeber at cc.univie.ac.at');>> wrote:
>
>>
>> While thinking about options or mechanisms to make virtual probes
>> "tamper-proof"
>> I had this question coming up:
>>
>> Is the probe software capable to "verify" (check-sum or digital sig) the
>> bootstrap
>> kit and then, during run-time, verify that the code in memory is still
>> genuine?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Wilfried
>>
>>
>>
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