From: rab@well.sf.ca.us (Bob Bickford)
Subject: Re: Off the shelf cheap DES keyseach machine
Nntp-Posting-Host: well.sf.ca.us
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
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In article <TOM.93Apr21114536@amber.ssd.csd.harris.com>,
  tom@ssd.csd.harris.com (Tom Horsley) writes:
>
>This isn't intended to be a flame or anything, I am just really curious
>how to manufacture these things while still maintaining the key escrow
>security without simply saying "trust the manufacturer, they won't look".

Without getting into the *really* *thorny* questions about reverse
engineering and all of that, let me just point out that there already
exist gate arrays and suchlike that have what's known as a security fuse
which can be programmed after you've verified all other programming --
this makes it impossible to read out the programming of the device
(again, ignoring the reverse engineering questions).  Speaking from
experience here: I had to completely reinvent one of my designs some
six or seven years ago when the disk file was zapped, the backups were
all bad, and the devices were unreadable because of the security fuses.
Made me appreciate the value of printouts.  ;-)

So on this point at least there's not so much worry.

But whether or not we can get the chips made reliably and securely is
really secondary to the question of whether use of the chip is itself
likely to be secure, methinks.
--
 Robert Bickford      "A Hacker is any person who derives joy from
 rab@well.sf.ca.us    discovering ways to circumvent limitations." rab'86
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"I recognize that a class of criminals and juvenile delinquents has
taken to calling themselves 'hackers', but I consider them irrelevant
to the true meaning of the word; just as the Mafia calls themselves
'businessmen' but nobody pays that fact any attention."            rab'90
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