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\section*{Homework 4}

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\begin{enumerate}

\item What should the architecture of a network application

      under Unix be that processes potentially hostile data?

\item What is a unikernel system and why is a unikernel

      preferable on a web server system (in contrast to a

      traditional general purpose operating system like

      Linux). Hint: What is the idea of a unikernel?

\item What does the principle of least privilege say?

\item How can you exploit the fact that every night root has a

      cron job that deletes the files in \texttt{/tmp}? (Hint:

      cron-attack)

\item In which of the following situations can the access

      control mechanism of Unix file permissions be used?

\begin{itemize}

\item[(a)] Alice wants to have her files readable, except for her office mates.

\item[(b)] Bob and Sam want to share some secret files.

\item[(c)] Root wants some of her files to be public.

\end{itemize}

\item Explain what is meant by \emph{Kerckhoffs' principle}.

\item How can a system that separates between \emph{users} and \emph{root} be of any 

help with buffer overflow attacks?

\item What does it mean that the program \texttt{passwd} has the

  \texttt{setuid} bit set? Why is this necessary?

\item Under Unix (for example BSD Unix, MacOSX) the \texttt{login} 

  programm has the setuid bit set. Why is this needed? In Linux

  \texttt{login} does \emph{not} have the setuid bit set. What are

  the consequences of this choice?

\item The variable \texttt{PATH} is a shell variable in UNIX which

  lists all directories that should be automatically searched for a

  program. For example if \texttt{PATH} contains the directory

  \texttt{/usr/bin} and the program \texttt{ls} is stored there, then

  a user does not need to type \texttt{/usr/bin/ls} to run this file,

  but \texttt{ls} suffices. The question is why is it a bad idea in

  general, but in particular for root, to have \texttt{.} as the first

  entry in ones variable \texttt{PATH}?

\item In the context of which information flow should be protected, explain briefly the 

differences between the {\it read rule} of the Bell-LaPadula access

policy and the Biba access policy. Do the same for the {\it write rule}.

\item \POSTSCRIPT

\end{enumerate}

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