[Soot-list] Search for information flow tracking tool

[Richard L. Halpert]

Explicit Information Flow: Information stored in y is propagated directly to
x.

Implicit Information Flow: Information about y can be inferred by the value
of x (as a result of some control flow depending on y which affects the
value of x).

Both of these things are information flow.  My information flow analysis
only tracks the explicit type.

-Rich

On Jan 28, 2008 1:07 PM, Chris Pickett <chris.pickett at mail.mcgill.ca> wrote:

> Hi Sunny,
>
> I have three recommendations:
>
> 1) Look at Ahmer Ahmedani's M.Sc. thesis (Sable website), he has both
> implicit (control-flow dependent) and explicit information flow analyses.
>
> 2) Look at Richard Halpert's information flow analysis described in our
> PACT'07 paper (Sable website) -- however, it only accounts for explicit
> information flow, so no control flow.
>
> 3) Look at Indus for program slicing (Google it...)
>
> Eric, I think Sunny is right, information flow analysis does generally
> include a control flow analysis.  A post-dominator analysis is probably
> the building block you want for it.
>
> Cheers,
> Chris
>
> Eric Bodden wrote:
> > To my best knowledge, information flow analysis only tracks data flow
> > and not control flow. In your example, there is no data flowing from x
> > to y. That's why I believe that an information flow analysis could not
> > give you the answers you need. (There *may* be information flow
> > analyses which do what you need, though.)
> >
> > Slicing definitely takes control flow dependencies into account and
> > hence would point to x, when being queried on y.
> >
> > Eric
> >
> > On 28/01/2008, Sunny <sunfire001 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Hello Eric and Alvin.
> >>
> >> Thanks for your quick responses!
> >>
> >> Actually I am not quite sure whether this analysis belongs to
> information
> >> flow tracking or slicing. But I read WASSIM A. MASRI's dissertation
> which
> >> has the following definitions for the two cocepts:
> >>
> >>
> >> Information flow: Information flow occurs from object y (source) to
> object x
> >> (target or sink) whenever information stored in y is propagated
> directly or
> >> indirectly to object x, .i.e., if information about y can be inferred
> by
> >> examining x.
> >> Program Slicing: Program Slicing is concerned with finding all
> statements in
> >> a program that directly or indirectly influence another statement in a
> >> program.
> >>
> >> So I think this analysis is closer to the information flow tracking.
> >> Anyways, they are closely related to each other and I will certainly
> take a
> >> look at those tools you mentioned. Thank you for your time!
> >>
> >> Cheers,
> >>
> >> Sunny
> >>
> >>
> >> On Jan 28, 2008 2:30 PM, Alvin Yan <feiya200 at cs.uregina.ca> wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> >>> It sounds like a forward data flow analysis to me. You can take a look
> at
> >> the package soot.jimple.toolkits there're all kinds of analysis,
> >>> or extend Soot's flow analysis to write your own. There's a good
> example
> >> in the Soot's survivor's guide.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> From: Sunny
> >>> Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 9:41 AM
> >>> To: soot-list at sable.mcgill.ca
> >>> Subject: [Soot-list] Search for information flow tracking tool
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Dear All,
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> I am new in the field of data/control flow analysis, and my current
> >> project
> >>> requires me to find the set of variables that can affect the value of
> >> another
> >>> variable. For instance...
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >
> >
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