text_combined: scott mackenzie scottmcrystalnccccnmus software package used w2k microsloth purpose ghost one essentially takes picture machines proper config upon schedule demand replaces machines current config proper picture essentially overwrites entire disk drive especially good student access machines libraries etc ben mord wrote original message crispin cowan mailtocrispinwirexcom sent wednesday september 04 2002 546 pm ben mord cc webappsec securityfocuscom secprog securityfocus subject use base image delta image automated recovery attacks dissertation work area optimistic computing interested applying security problem unfortunately hit bunch problems commit state good cant run redo log forever performance storage penalties accumulate even log structured file systems garbage collect eventually commit sometime problem commit eagerly might commit corrupted state commit conservatively eat performance storage penalties b discover corrupted state middle redo log want critical state comes need way dig corruption middle save rest dissertation solves problem rewrite everything programming language c imposes substantial performance penalties love vmware use every day best 200 ever spent software fast proposed solution first two problems mention less ambitious idea never commit instead simply revert base state reboot obviously cant partitions accrue important state eg partition stores database table data typical web application partitions accrue important state example typical web server application server could entire state reset back known base state reboot without harm advantage less ambitious quick easy way frustrate certain attacks without rewriting software spending lots money additional applicationspecific coding first two problems describe occur become ambitious try apply techniques example database table partitions state changes remain important across reboots would certainly nice touch point many problems would addressed first hardest abstracted away particular application least problem writing heuristics delineating good malevolent state task roughly analogous antiviral software authors living work could shared across many different systems would specific paritcular application third problem mention performance penalty argument hardware much like hardware raid another argument hardware hack resistance changing base instance require physical access console eg requiring first flip physical switch raid hardware modify bios setting base image modified remotely software worry whether implementation flaw might permit cracker modify base image remotely ben ______ scott mackenzie dine college isd c phonevoice mail 9287246639 senior dbacars coordinatoretc _ email scottmcrystalnccccnmus thu 05 sep 2002 112613 0600 fw use base image delta image automated recovery