Papers posts

Notes: Producing Verifiable Builds for Large-Scale Commercial Systems

Last updated Papers Software supply chain security

While reviewing practical lessons on verifiable builds, I read An Experience Report on Producing Verifiable Builds for Large-Scale Commercial Systems (2021), which focuses on catching nondeterminism with intercept-and-ignore lists, explaining what can’t be fixed, and systematizing it into a repeatable process.

This isn’t just about reproducibility: it touches auditor trust, SBOM completeness, and the future of supply chain assurance. Worth a skim if you care about provable software integrity.

Notes: Automatic Bill of Materials and runtime SBOM enforcement

Last updated Software supply chain security Papers

Automatic Bill of Materials (2023) embeds source file hashes into binaries with compressed Bloom filters, making it easy to check whether known-vulnerable code is present.

It’s a great read alongside SBOM.EXE: Countering Dynamic Code Injection based on Software Bill of Materials in Java (2024), which proposes an index built with bytecode canonicalization and a JVM watchdog agent to make the SBOM an enforceable runtime contract.

This is also a great opportunity to mention Building a Runtime JAR Inspector in 10 Hours from Bruno Borges and team.

The themes connect to runtime integrity checks, dependency-aware enforcement, and SBOM and evidence portability. It’s also worth giving a fresh read to OmniBOR: A System for Automatic, Verifiable Artifact Resolution across Software Supply Chains (2024).

Notes: Remote Attestation with Constrained Disclosure

Last updated Papers Attestable computing

Remote Attestation with Constrained Disclosure (2023) proposes a selective log disclosure mechanism for TPM-based attestation. It uses non-interactive zero-knowledge (NIZK) proofs over IMA logs to let systems prove integrity without revealing full software inventories.

The selective disclosure primitives introduced here are interesting beyond privacy—for example, for fine-grained trust delegation across supply chains.

Notes: Reflections on Trusting Distributed Trust

Last updated Papers Software supply chain security

Here’s a modern classic: Reflections on Trusting Distributed Trust (2022) proposes an auditable deployment model using trusted execution environments and append-only logs to solve distributed trust bootstrapping without expensive cross-organization coordination.

I found it an approachable, practical read that is relevant to supply chain integrity and multiparty, privacy-preserving computation.

Worth a read if you touch distributed systems and transparency in your work.

Notes: Lightweight certificate revocation for low-power IoT with end-to-end security

Last updated Cryptography Papers

A few months ago I ran across Lightweight certificate revocation for low-power IoT with end-to-end security (2023), a proposal to make PKI-style revocation viable in constrained devices using slimmed-down, CBOR-based TinyOCSP and compressed Bloom filters.

Revocation isn’t just an IoT issue. It connects to many topics, from membership proofs—à la Automatic Bill of Materials—to transparency log auditing. I liked that this paper goes all the way down to practical implementation details but still takes time to introduce basic concepts for the reader.

Notes: Trust in Software Supply Chains: Blockchain-Enabled SBOM and the AIBOM Future

Last updated Software supply chain security Papers

Trust in Software Supply Chains: Blockchain-Enabled SBOM and the AIBOM Future (2024) proposes a decentralized, selective SBOM disclosure system using verifiable credentials and zero-knowledge proofs to address the tension between software supply chain transparency and proprietary confidentiality.

Worth a read if you touch SBOMs or decentralized trust models in your work.