July 20, 2012 A team led by Harvard computer scientists,
including two undergraduate students, has developed a new tool
that could lead to increased security and enhanced performance
for commonly used web and mobile applications. Called RockSalt,
the clever bit of code can verify that native computer
programming languages comply with a particular security policy.
Presented at the ACM Conference on Programming Language Design
and Implementation (PLDI) in Beijing, in June, RockSalt was
created by Greg Morrisett, Allen B. Cutting Professor of
Computer Science at the Harvard School of Engineering and
Applied Sciences (SEAS), two of his undergraduate students
Edward Gan '13 and Joseph Tassarotti '13, former postdoctoral
fellow Jean-Baptiste Tristan (now at Oracle), and Gang Tan of
Lehigh University. The use of native code, especially in an
online environment, however, opens up the door to hackers who
can exploit vulnerabilities and readily gain access to other
parts of a computer or device. An initial solution to