Papers for

embedded software developers

Papers whose findings have a practical use for this group, as judged from the abstract. Open a paper to read what it means in practice.

Schedulability test errors found for self-suspending task scheduling

Comments Paper: Counterexample for Schedulability Analysis for Self-Suspending Tasks under EDF-Like Scheduling

Abstract: This paper provides a counterexample of the sufficient schedulability test for self-suspending real-time tasks under EDF-Like scheduling given by Wang et al. in Theorem 11 of IEEE Transactions on Computers, 74(7):2364-2375, 2025. This paper also shows that their necessary condition is unsound.

Mon 19 OctOperating Systems
The gist
Sometimes computers have jobs that pause and wait during their work, making it tricky to schedule them so they always finish on time. Wang and colleagues proposed a method to check if these jobs can be scheduled safely, but the authors of this paper found an example that breaks that method. They also showed that one part of Wang's method that was supposed to be necessary is actually incorrect. This means the previous scheduling checks for these pausing tasks need to be reconsidered.
Open → 2610.26274v1

Compiler pipeline helps protect devices from timing attacks

FreeSBee: A Constant-Time Compilation Pipeline

Abstract: Constant-time execution is an important security property, especially for IoT devices, that prevents the leakage of sensitive information over timing side-channels. However, achieving constant-time execution is very hard when going down to the cycle level, at least on realistic devices. A lot of research is concerned with producing tools that either determine whether code is constant-time or that ensure it is compiled into a constant-time binary, with various degrees of accuracy. In this work, we present and evaluate a full workflow for hardening against timing side-channels during compilation. It starts with taint analysis to determine the code locations that depend on sensitive information. These are then the object of automated control-flow transformations inside the compiler to seal possible timing side-channels. We evaluate our workflow in detail on a realistic application running on a RISC-V core using both static timing analysis and statistical methods. Even though we do not reach cycle-accurate constant-time execution, our statistical results suggest that our hardened binary is safe against timing attacks.

Wed 14 OctCryptography and Security
The gist
Timing attacks can let hackers learn secret information by measuring how long a device takes to run certain code. The authors present a method that analyzes which parts of the program use sensitive data and then changes the program's code inside the compiler to hide timing differences. They tested their approach on realistic hardware and found it made timing attacks much harder, even if it didn’t perfectly equalize every cycle. This work makes it easier to produce safer software for small devices like those in the Internet of Things.
Open → 2610.20171v1