2026-09-19T04:28:55Zhttps://dspace.mit.edu/server/oai/requestoai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/1005982026-06-06T00:55:00Zcom_1721.1_7582com_1721.1_7581col_1721.1_131023
Srini Devadas.
Hemberger, Paul Wang
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
2016-01-04T19:57:21Z
2016-01-04T19:57:21Z
2015
2015
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/100598
932129591
Thesis: M. Eng., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2015.
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 83-85).
This thesis outlines a new language feature for Ruby: the security context, which enables complex information flow control schemes to be written in Ruby without modification to the virtual machine. Security contexts are Ruby objects that act as transparent proxies and can be attached to other objects, allowing them to seamlessly modify parameters and return values into and out of those objects' methods. Security contexts are demonstrated to be simple and effective in creating two flow control applications that would otherwise pose significant challenge to build: taint tracking as a Ruby library, and data flow assertions for Ruby on Rails applications. The performance of these systems was benchmarked while running as a part of a Rails application, and reached acceptable performance: taint tracking had no impact on performance, and data flow assertions saw a 50% throughput decrease, while providing considerable protection against privacy leaks and security vulnerabilities.
by Paul Wang Hemberger.
M.Eng.
85 pages
eng
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.
http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Improving information flow control design with security contexts
Thesis
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<Abstract>This thesis outlines a new language feature for Ruby: the security context, which enables complex information flow control schemes to be written in Ruby without modification to the virtual machine. Security contexts are Ruby objects that act as transparent proxies and can be attached to other objects, allowing them to seamlessly modify parameters and return values into and out of those objects' methods. Security contexts are demonstrated to be simple and effective in creating two flow control applications that would otherwise pose significant challenge to build: taint tracking as a Ruby library, and data flow assertions for Ruby on Rails applications. The performance of these systems was benchmarked while running as a part of a Rails application, and reached acceptable performance: taint tracking had no impact on performance, and data flow assertions saw a 50% throughput decrease, while providing considerable protection against privacy leaks and security vulnerabilities.</Abstract>
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