FSU Operating Systems and Storage Research

Our research group website is here.

TrueErase Secure Deletion

My research includes creating true secure deletion solutions that work with all types of storage media, including flash storage media. TrueErase is also backwards-compatible with the current operating system data-path so that it can be easily added to current systems. This research has resulted resulted in a survey of secure stoarge and deletion (to be published in ACM Computing Surveys), a paper on weaknesses of certain block cipher modes of encryption in two-time pad situations in storage (appearing in StorageSS '08), and is leading into a fully-working prototype for secure deletion on NAND flash media.

The official TrueErase research website can be found here.

The Bootable Cluster CD

I was employed as an undergraduate research assistant from June 2003 - December 2004 working with Dr. Paul Gray on the Bootable Cluster CD project. The Bootable Cluster CD (BCCD) is a bootable CD image that boots up into a pre-configured distributed computing environment. One of the problems with teaching high-performance computing today is the lack of clustering environments to teach with. Most primarily undergraduate institutions don't have the money, time, or other resources to maintain a full-time clustering environment. The BCCD takes advantage of existing computer labs at these institutions by being a non-destructive, drop-in cd that boots up to a full-fledged clustering environment, while leaving the underlying operating system intact. By being such a simple, powerful solution, the BCCD serves as an education doorway to learing about high-performance computing that students may not otherwise get to partake in.

Some things I've done for the BCCD:

  • Extensive documentation on the clustering environment, clustering packages, and clustering file systems! Much of this is still available on the project wiki.
  • Set up project
  • Set up project mailing list (Mailman).
  • Set up project bug tracker.
  • Set up the project wiki.
  • Updated BCCD application packages.
  • Maintenance of BCCD home page.
  • Added new BCCD boot-up modes.
  • Wrote customized BCCD-specific scripts.
  • Helped write two papers, numerous presentations, and a poster.

Guardian Kernel Module

Guardian Kernel Module was a project in my kernel/device drives class in 2006. It is a Linux 2.6 kernel module that can hide (cloak) itself in a running kernel, prevent or alert the user when modifications or misuses of the system call table occur, check for other cloaked modules, and check the integrity of other currently loaded modules. Check out the link above for the source code, project documentation, rootkit tests, and other goodies. Please be aware, though, that this module only works on certain tested version of the Linux 2.6 kernel.

Network Scanner Vulnerability Scanner

This was a project completed in the advanced Unix programming class (2005). A partner and I built a network vulnerability scanner using the C programming lanuage similar to Nessus, which scans a host's ports, attempts to grab service banners to deduce service version/OS type, and automatically tests the vulnerability on the host.

Undergraduate Senior Project: Intrusion detection System

The project paper can be found here.

I set up and used the Snort intrusion detection system to monitor and compare traffic on a major university network against global traffic patterns observed from the Internet Storm Center. I was able to predict ports with service vulnerabilities in advance based on abnormal traffic patterns. Here is the presentation.