Re: I'll show you mine if you show me, er, mine
The description has virtually nothing to do with the actual algorithm proposed. Follow the link in the article - http://www.stealth-attacks.info/ - for an actual - if informal - description. There is no actual description publically available (there are three completely different protocols described in the press). I talked to the author about this; he sent me a fourth, somewhat reasonable document. At *best*, this is something akin to SRP with the server constantly proving its true nature with every character (yes, shoulder surfers get to attack keys one at a time). It could get pretty bad though, so rather than support it or bash it, I'd just reserve judgement until it's publically documented at Financial Crypto. --Dan
Re: Dell to Add Security Chip to PCs
The best that can happen with TCPA is pretty good - it could stop a lot of viruses and malware, for one thing. No, it can't. That's the point; it's not like the code running inside the sandbox becomes magically exploitproof...it just becomes totally opaque to any external auditor. A black hat takes an exploit, encrypts it to the public key exported by the TCPA-compliant environment (think about a worm that encrypts itself to each cached public key) and sends the newly unauditable structure out. Sure, the worm can only manipulate data inside the sandbox, but when the whole *idea* is to put everything valuable inside these safe sandboxes, that's not exactly comforting. --Dan
Re: Dell to Add Security Chip to PCs
Uh, you *really* have no idea how much the black hat community is looking forward to TCPA. For example, Office is going to have core components running inside a protected environment totally immune to antivirus. Since these components are going to be managing cryptographic operations, the well defined API exposed from within the sandbox will have arbitrary content going in, and opaque content coming out. Malware goes in (there's not a executable environment created that can't be exploited), sets up shop, has no need to be stealthy due to the complete blockage of AV monitors and cleaners, and does what it wants to the plaintext and ciphertext (alters content, changes keys) before emitting it back out the opaque outbound interface. So, no FUD, you lose :) --Dan Erwann ABALEA wrote: On Wed, 2 Feb 2005, Trei, Peter wrote: Seeing as it comes out of the TCG, this is almost certainly the enabling hardware for Palladium/NGSCB. Its a part of your computer which you may not have full control over. Please stop relaying FUD. You have full control over your PC, even if this one is equiped with a TCPA chip. See the TCPA chip as a hardware security module integrated into your PC. An API exists to use it, and one if the functions of this API is 'take ownership', which has the effect of erasing it and regenerating new internal keys.
