On design of a trusted software base with support of TPCM

Abstract

Building trusted computing systems has been continuous endeavors for a long time. However, an increasing amount of trust problems remain unsolved in real-world applications. One of the most important reasons is that insufficient applicable software is available to handle the situation. Although the TCG tries to help building trusted software with TSS, the TSS essentially only states how to use a TPM but not what kind of software to build with the TPM. This paper proposes an answer to the latter question. With considerations to the Chinese counterpart of a TPM, i.e. a TPCM, the paper argues that a Trusted Software Base (TSB) is significant to build trusted applications. It defines a TSB as the totality of trust support mechanisms for system software on a computing platform, which monitors trustworthiness of software on the platform. The concept of TSB is presented and the approaches to designing it are discussed. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.