Re: Documenting Timing Attacks in Rendering Engines from Tab Atkins Jr. on 2011-12-12 (public-fx@w3.org from October to December 2011)

From: Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:06:24 -0800
To: Ralph Thomas <ralpht@gmail.com>
Cc: Adam Barth <w3c@adambarth.com>, Vincent Hardy <vhardy@adobe.com>, "public-fx@w3.org" <public-fx@w3.org>
Message-ID: <CAAWBYDA-HHtcOrABwrvTbo3TdDB8hnhcb0RdEcL=0EYtdiopJA@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 12:00 PM, Ralph Thomas <ralpht@gmail.com> wrote:
> Do you think that GLSL could be changed to prevent the timing from
> changing depending on the content? Could the GLSL validator be changed
> to not allow conditionals dependent on texture samples from the page?
>
> That would eliminate various effects, but at least most shaders
> wouldn't do texture indirections anyway, since it's slow on embedded
> hardware.

Not without completely neutering the language.  There are many effects
based on the texture contents.

~TJ

Received on Monday, 12 December 2011 20:07:21 UTC