Dynamically evolvable distributed systems

Dynamic evolution allows designers to move logic from interpreted data structures into directly executed code. This provides the efficiency of code-driven security enforcement without sacrificing flexibility. The Evolvable Systems Project (ESP) at University of California, is developing techniques for safely and securely evolve distributed Java applications at runtime. We briefly describe the design and implementation of a type-safe model for dynamically modifying Java programs on a single host. We then describe how this model can be applied for building an adaptive security infrastructure. An extension of the single host model to a distributed environment is considered. Finally, we conclude with a brief outline of the project and the future work.