Trust4All
Project code: Trust4All
Research group: Coordination Languages (SEN3)
Start: 2005-07-01
End: 2007-07-01
Project coordinator: Farhad Arbab
The ability to update and tailor a product offers an increased return of investment (by extending the lifetime) and increased business agility (by adapting to changing requireÂments). For embedded systems, this flexibility can be offered by enabling the upgrading and extension of the software in the system. The facility for loading new software onto a device opens up the opportunity for introducing software on the system that is developed by third parties (parties other than the producer of the device). This openness is beneficial for the emergence of a market for software components. However, this openness may also result in the introduction of faulty and/or malicious software on the system. Clearly, this constitutes a threat to the correct functioning of a system. The problem that the Trust4All project aims to solve is how to establish and maintain correct operation of a system, while the software embedded in the system is being upgraded and extended (while the system is in use by a customer).
In software systems, the mechanisms for enabling the upgrading of software are allocated to the middleware layer. The goal of the Trust4all project is to invent techniques for the middleware for ensuring the proper working of systems whose software is dynamically extended and upgraded.
Members
Farhad Arbab, Frank Atanassow, Frank de Boer, Tom Chothia, Jan Rutten