[117852] in Cypherpunks
trusted chips? trusted testing other chips? backdoored chips paractical? w/o html
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Gary Jeffers)
Mon Sep 13 02:27:35 1999
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From: "Gary Jeffers" <jeffers@htc.net>
To: <cypherpunks@cyberpass.net>
Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 01:05:41 -0700
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Reply-To: "Gary Jeffers" <jeffers@htc.net>
trusted chips? trusted testing other chips? backdoored chips practical?
It seems to me that to have real computer security it is necessary
to have at least 1 CPU chip trusted. An oppressive and ambitious
State could most elegantly destroy computer freedom by putting
backdoors with string checkers in CPU chips.
It might be possible to put a modest CPU chip in line with the
powerful, modern "maliced" chips in order to "cage" them. The trusted
chip would encrypt and decrypt the data flowing to and from the
"maliced" chip. There could be several cheap trusted chips in a system.
At the very least, the trusted chips could prevent "maliced" systems
from sending and receiving "malice" strings.
Trusted chips could be placed between keyboards and the rest of
the system. Monitors would be more difficult.
Could a trusted chip be built so that it kept its memory when the
system was powered down? I think this would be necessary.
Is it possible for a trusted chip to determine if another
chip can be trusted?
Would it be practical for a huge State to force CPU chip
manufacturers to design their chips with backdoors?
Note: I believe that the U.S. military refers to intentionally
corrupted code as malice code.
Yours Truly,
Gary Jeffers
BEAT STATE!!!!
