Leon Schuermann will present his general exam "Fortifying Rust’s Foreign Function Interface with Encapsulated Functions" on April 29, 2024 at 10am in Friend 110. The members of his committee are as follows: Amit Levy (adviser), Wyatt Lloyd, and Mae Milano Abstract and reading list links are below: [ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D701FYZKlxkfQ2bxm1jaLSYEksHCrVvW0iOg26ZLT-w/edit?usp=sharing\ | https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D701FYZKlxkfQ2bxm1jaLSYEksHCrVvW0iOg26ZL... ] Abstract Memory- and type-safe languages like Rust are increasingly popular for systems development. Nonetheless, practical systems must interact with code written in memory-unsafe languages. Examples for this can be found across the spectrum, with many Rust applications linking against popular libraries such as OpenSSL, to security and safety-critical embedded systems, where subsystems such as cryptographic implementations are subject to industrial and governmental certification requirements. Direct interactions with such libraries, however, expose safe languages to significant risks: any single bug in either the foreign code or the cross-language interactions may arbitrarily violate the memory and/or type safety of the wrapping language. This talk presents Encapsulated Functions, an ongoing research project exploring how to secure cross-language interactions along with their differing guarantees and semantics around memory- and type-safety. At its core, Encapsulated Functions is a framework that combines memory protection mechanisms (such as the RISC-V Physical Memory Protection or Intel's Memory Protection Keys) with a set of portable types to both restrict and encapsulate behavior across the language boundary. Through the portability across different memory protection mechanisms we can utilize this infrastructure in both highly-restrictive embedded systems and applications running on conventional operating systems alike.