Andrew Lentvorski wrote:
> Here's an interesting question:
> 
> Is it possible to create an open source SecurID-like keyfob?  Building
> the hardware should be *painfully* cheap.  I'm staring at a full 8051
> with flash from TI for under $10.  It even does USB.
> 
> 
> The RSA keyfobs presumably have two things:
> 
> 1) Unknown time-based algorithm for generating the factor
> 
> Security-by-obscurity is always bad, but I'll presume that RSA has a
> good algorithm somewhere.  I presume that we could find some good
> algorithm that's already vetted by the security community.
> 
> 2) A seed value used to generate the sequence.
> 
> Effectively, this is the "shared secret".  Presumably, you want
> something like public key cryptography.  The private key is stored on
> your keyfob while the public key is stored on your server.
> 
> 
> The question is: what algorithm?
> 
> On the keyfob side, we need an algorithm that can take the current time
> and some private key and create a factor.
> 
> One the computer side, we need an algorithm that can take the public
> key, the current time, and the factor and verify that the factor is
> correct.  I don't know how to do this.
> 

What if the "factor" were simply a signed keyed-hash of the current
time. I guess the time would have to be bucket-ized to give it some
range of validity.

Regards,
..jim


-- 
[email protected]
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list

Reply via email to