[2769] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: DRUDGE-REPORT-EXCLUSIVE 5/20/98 (fwd)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Arnold G. Reinhold)
Thu May 28 09:38:43 1998
In-Reply-To: <19980527210020.A12150@die.com>
Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 09:28:33 -0400
To: die@die.com
From: "Arnold G. Reinhold" <reinhold@world.std.com>
Cc: cryptography@c2.net
At 9:00 PM -0400 5/27/98, Dave Emery wrote:
>... And having much of the software
>uploaded aviods the problems caused by cosmic ray events that flip
>bits in roms - one really wants to keep the rom part of the code very
>small.
>
> Hardware crypto provides protection for the code upload, and
>aviods sending crypto code or keys over a link that could be possibly
>be compromised.
>
I am surprised that there aren't any radiation reliable ROMs built using
error correcting codes, but if one cannot rely on ROM to hold a loader big
enough to check a public key signature, then I have to concede. Hardware
encryption would be the only way to go. Thanks for the explanation.
Arnold Reinhold
