[5869] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Atmel "security IC"
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Keith Dawson)
Mon Oct 11 10:33:08 1999
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Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1999 16:19:40 -0400
To: cryptography@c2.net
From: Keith Dawson <dawson@world.std.com>
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On 1999-09-29 Atmel announced a partnership with IBM to make crypto
processors for the IBM PC 300 PL. From the press release [1]:
The hardware core of the security system is a cryptographic
processor developed by Atmel that can both store secret keys
in nonvolatile memory, and compute public key functions using
those secret keys. Among these functions is generation of
signatures, secure storage and transmission of various secret
keys. The IC protects against many of the kinds of breaches
that hackers might use to gain secret information.
The press release gives no details of the crypto technology used. A
search page [2] has a pick-box to let you find products featuring
crypto, but such a search comes up empty.
IBM's site has no announcement that I could find about the Atmel
partnership nor any information about crypto in the IBM PC 300 PL.
A local (Colorado) newspaper story [3] either quotes a spokesman who
doesn't know what he's talking about, or Atmel is in the running for
a snake-oil award:
"...uses crypotographic [sic] algorhythms [sic] -- complicated
math formulas -- within the chip's circuitry to dictate how
the information is sent... [The company is] so serious about
the chip's security that it isn't publishing the chip's 'specs'
... Doing so might enable someone to breach the chip's security
features, [a company spokesman] said."
The piece is titled "Atmel, IBM unveil world's first computer
security chip." Guess the reporter never heard of Clipper.
Comments? Product knowledge?
Press release
[1] http://www.atmel.com/atmel/news/19990929.htm
Product search
[2] http://www.atmel.com/atmel/products/select38.htm
Local newspaper story
[3] http://gazette.com/weekly/ibiz/biz9.html
_____________________________________________________
Keith Dawson dawson@world.std.com http://dawson.nu/
Layer of ash separates morning and evening milk.
