Security Engineering Research Group

Android netbooks

The following article is a good introduction into the scope of Android and what technology Google is to enable for the near future.

http://venturebeat.com/2009/01/01/android-netbooks-on-their-way-likely-by-2010/

It seems that Android has yet to get mature and it wont be until next year that it will be released on mobile devices. It is definitely required that we do give sometime to it all the way with other activities because it holds a greater share in the near future.

Tags: Android

System Engineering Concepts on Wiki

The SERG Wiki has been updated with two articles related to the core concepts of software stacks and how window management is used on these stacks. Its a must read to clearly understand how different kinds of software are interconnected and related in a general purpose OS. This is a work in progress and your feedback will help in improving this work.

• http://www.imsciences.edu.pk/serg/wiki/index.php/Distribution_vs._Platform
• http://www.imsciences.edu.pk/serg/wiki/index.php/Window_Management

These concepts are used at SERG for mobile/smartphone system development. These are concepts that students are required to know before they attend the workshops in future.

Ubuntu and Intel on Mobiles

This is somewhat old news but Ubuntu is now aiming at mobile platforms with ARM processors. The article mentions that a port of Ubuntu for Intel’s Atom processor is already available. It remains to be seen whether providing a PC distribution on the contemporary smart phone will be enough. I don’t think so. A mobile has special requirements and a dedicated effort at developing a detailed software stack (like Openmoko and Android) is necessary.

BA4WS Paper Available Online

Behavioral Attestation for Web Services (BA4WS) presented in Secure Web Services (SWS’08) at the Conference on Computers and Communications Security (CCS’08) is available online. See details here: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1456492.1456496.

Virtualization on Mobiles

“VMware on Monday extended its virtualization platform to the mobile phone platform with the unveiling of its VMware Mobile Virtualization Platform based on a previously unannounced acquisition it closed last month.The new platform lets mobile phone users work with multiple virtual phones at the same time, said Srinivas Krishnamurti, VMware’s director of product development management and market development.”

http://www.crn.com/networking/212001314

On Android and Java

Looking at different discussions regarding about Android, Dalvik, Java, Google and Sun, I came across this excellent article. It discusses the moves by Sun and Google on the Java and Android platforms. Also, take a look at Harmony by Apache. It’s a fork of the Java libraries and as such, should be very useful when you need “Java without Java”.

SACMAT2009 Call for Papers (CFP)

SACMAT 2009 call for papers is out:

http://www.sacmat.org/2009/date.php

*  January 16
o Deadline for submission of paper
* January 16
o Deadline for submission of panel proposal
* March 6
o Acceptance notification
* March 31
o Deadline for camera-ready copies of the accepted papers
* June 3-5
o SACMAT in Stresa, Italy

Mobilware Call for Papers (CFP)

Mobilware in Berlin, Germany:

http://www.mobilware.org/cfp.shtml

Important Dates

Paper Submission Due Date:     November 23, 2008
Workshop/Tutorial Proposals Due Date:     December 1, 2008
Notification of Acceptance:     February 1, 2009
Camera Ready Versions Due:     February 20, 2009
Conference Dates:     April 28-30, 2009

EnCoRe Project Updated

Website for the project, “Ensuring Consent and Revocation” has been udpated. Information can be seen at the project website here.

News from Blog of Trust

I came across (once again, after a long time) this blog called Blog of Trust with lots of information about Trusted Computing, Remote Attestation and mobile platforms. The author (according to the About page) is an employee of the TCG.

Two of the posts I found very interesting were:

1. “OKL4 and Android: are the pieces slotting into place?”

Describes the possibility of an MTM on Android. This seems to be a hot topic and we need to look into it in detail and soon. Read the Post here.

2. Aonix contributing PERC Ultra JVM to TECOM

TECOM is a project aimed at bringing trusted computing to the mobile platforms. See these two sites for the original TECOM page and a MarketWatch article on the project.

I would love it if one of the fresh young associates can subscribe to the Blog of Trust RSS and keep us updated on the latest developments there. It’s a very informative blog about TC.