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Another obvious example that can benefit from the setup is a crypto coprocessor, whereby private keys are side-loaded onto the coprocessor by means of a separat
by sparkie 11y ago
Another obvious example that can benefit from the setup is a crypto coprocessor, whereby private keys are side-loaded onto the coprocessor by means of a separate hardware bus, such that the key is never exposed to the CPU or main memory, and the coprocessor can handle all encryption/decryption with said keys.
- tkinom 11y agoFPGA+CPU type setup is not cheap to develop or deploy. Crypto with modern CPU such as pentium works wells. Also almost all the ARM Soc comes with crypto co-processor already with private memory that's not share with main CPU. Not too sure about the value add there.
- sparkie 11y agoThe value is not about performance, but security. Crypto done by modern CPUs is susceptible to many side-channel attacks. Having a separate SoC is nice, but the SoC is not upgradable with new algorithms or patches if there are any problems found in its implementation. Also, just having a separate memory space for the purpose of computation is not sufficient. I'm arguing for an entirely separate hardware bus to load keys onto the chip, such that they never exist in CPU, memory, or the storage for the machine being used for general purpose computation, because keys there can be obtained via side-channels if other software (such as the kernel) is exploited.