---- Original Message -----
From: "Valdis Kletnieks" <Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu>
You really need assistance from one layer further down - if you're in a VM, you need to ask the hypervisor. If you're on bare metal, you need to ask the SMM or equivalent. If you're in the SMM, you need to ask the hardware. And of course, at each level, you have to ask yourself how you know that *that* level isn't lying to you....
(Yes, this is the corner of system security where, if you're not already a paranoid schizophrenic, you will be soon.. :)
If you have not already read the Ken Thompson paper: http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html And for a bit more on whether it was ever actually implemented, from Ken himself: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.security.unix/ivjYjNSduFc/0Er2cynPKjsJ Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA #natog +1 727 647 1274