<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>There was a lady who went to Purdue, I believe her name was Carla Brodley. She is a professor at Tufts currently. One of her projects, I'm not sure whether it is ongoing or historic, was surrounding hardware based stack protection. There wasn't any protection against heap / pointer overflows and I don't know how it fares when stack trampoline activities (which can be valid, but are rare outside of older objective-c code).<DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>www.smashguard.org and <FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#317D17" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000"><A href="https://engineering.purdue.edu">https://engineering.purdue.edu</A>/ ResearchGroups/SmashGuard/smash.html have more data.</FONT></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#317D17" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000">I'm not sure if this is a similar solution to what Intel might be pursuing. I believe the original "smashguard" work was based entirely on Alpha chips.</FONT></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">cheers,</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">.mudge</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#317D17" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000"><BR></FONT></SPAN></FONT><DIV><DIV>On Dec 13, 2005, at 15:19, Michael S Hines wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Doesn't a hardware 'feature' such as this lock software into a two-state model</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">(user/priv)?</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Who's to say that model is the best?<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Will that be the model of the future?<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Wouldn't a two-state software model that works be more effective? <SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">It's easier to change (patch) software than to rewire hardware (figuratively speaking).</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Just wondering...</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Mike Hines</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">-----------------------------------</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Michael S Hines</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="mailto:mshines@purdue.edu">mshines@purdue.edu</A><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">_______________________________________________</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L)</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="mailto:SC-L@securecoding.org">SC-L@securecoding.org</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">List information, subscriptions, etc - <A href="http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l">http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">List charter available at - <A href="http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php">http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php</A></DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV></BODY></HTML>