Entry Date:
October 29, 2010

HiStar

Principal Investigator Nickolai Zeldovich


HiStar is a new operating system designed to minimize the amount of trusted code in a system. HiStar provides strict information flow control, which allows users to specify precise data security policies without unduly limiting the structure of applications. HiStar's security features make it possible to implement a Unix-like environment with acceptable performance almost entirely in an untrusted user-level library. The system has no notion of superuser, and no fully trusted code other than the kernel. HiStar's features permit several novel applications, including an entirely untrusted login process, separation of data between virtual private networks, and privacy-preserving, untrusted virus scanners.