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"Confidential computing" might seem to refer to homomorphic encryption, but has nothing to do with it in its usage here. After searching around a bit, I suspect

"Confidential computing" might seem to refer to homomorphic encryption, but has nothing to do with it in its usage here. After searching around a bit, I suspect that Microsoft Azure first used it in 2017 to refer to code running within a trusted enclave. It looks to me that while Asylo is agnostic about the specific TEE used, it is primarily targeted at Intel SGX [1]. Instead of having to trust Google to run your code correctly and not read your data, you'd have to trust Intel to manufacture a secure enclave and essentially bake in a private key that cannot be read. You could use the public key to encrypt your code and workload, and it would run in a part of the processor that Google presumably cannot access (or measure [2]). A good further introduction might be this paper [3] (especially the diagram on page 2), or this answer [4]. I'll repeat my main concern with this system: you will reinforce Intel's position as 'feudal lord' in this model [5]. [1] https://github.com/google/asylo/tree/master/asylo/identity/sgx https://github.com/google/asylo/tree/master/asylo/identity/s... [2] https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.08719 https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.08719 [3] https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/086.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/086.pdf [4] https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/175749/what-are-the-functional-similarity-and-difference-between-tpm-and-sgx-in-trust-c https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/175749/what-are... [5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15936121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15936121

walterbell 8y ago
Has anyone gone through the process of requesting and receiving Intel whitelist permission to run production code within an SGX enclave?
kitd 8y ago
IBM Z Series mainframes also support encryption for all data end-to-end. https://venturebeat.com/2017/07/16/ibm-z-mainframe-brings-end-to-end-encryption-to-all-your-data/ https://venturebeat.com/2017/07/16/ibm-z-mainframe-brings-en...
stev0lution 8y ago
An extensive open source framework for efficient homomorphic encryption would have been so much more exciting and I really hope there will be some kind of breakthrough that reduces the current overhead significantly so it will be more commonly used in the future.. Oh well, at least there is a theoretical foundation (for completely trustless computation) on which we can build on.
tptacek 8y ago
Within 10 years every mainstream computing hardware environment will have some kind of TEE. They already exist on the iPhone (the SEP), Google's Android phones (the ARM TEE), upcoming high-end ARM processors in general (I think they were calling it "CryptoIsland"?), high-end Intel processors (SGX) and high-end AMD processors (SEV). The whole point of Asylo is to provide a hardware abstraction layer to make applications portable across different enclaves; it's the opposite of reinforcing Intel's position.
- Confiks 8y ago
  > The whole point of Asylo is to provide a hardware abstraction layer to make applications portable across different enclaves; it's the opposite of reinforcing Intel's position. Yes, I shouldn't have conflated Asylo and SGX (or TEEs in general – where SGX is now dominant for the remote attestation model). The concern was with SGX, maybe even specifically to it being used together with other TEEs for ubiquitous DRM on consumer devices. Asylo could indeed drive competition in the case of remote attestation.
  - jjoergensen 8y ago
    Would I need a commercial Intel license to use it for Intel SGX? I ask because they don't seem to hand out the licenses to everyone. https://software.intel.com/en-us/sgx/commercial-use-license-request https://software.intel.com/en-us/sgx/commercial-use-license-... https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/intel-software-guard-extensions-intel-sgx/topic/759356 https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/intel-software-guard...
- annasapek 8y ago
  Disclaimer: I am from the Asylo team. That’s exactly the level of abstraction that we’re looking to provide in Asylo. The parent post linked to the asylo/identity/sgx directory, which contains SGX-specific implementations of some of our higher-level identity abstractions [1]. For instance, “EnclaveAssertionGenerator” defines an interface for generating attestations bound to an enclave’s identity, and “sgx::LocalAssertionGenerator” (an internal construct to our framework) provides that functionality for SGX. [1] https://github.com/google/asylo/tree/master/asylo/identity https://github.com/google/asylo/tree/master/asylo/identity

walterbell 8y ago

Has anyone gone through the process of requesting and receiving Intel whitelist permission to run production code within an SGX enclave?

kitd 8y ago

IBM Z Series mainframes also support encryption for all data end-to-end. https://venturebeat.com/2017/07/16/ibm-z-mainframe-brings-end-to-end-encryption-to-all-your-data/ https://venturebeat.com/2017/07/16/ibm-z-mainframe-brings-en...

stev0lution 8y ago

An extensive open source framework for efficient homomorphic encryption would have been so much more exciting and I really hope there will be some kind of breakthrough that reduces the current overhead significantly so it will be more commonly used in the future.. Oh well, at least there is a theoretical foundation (for completely trustless computation) on which we can build on.

tptacek 8y ago

Within 10 years every mainstream computing hardware environment will have some kind of TEE. They already exist on the iPhone (the SEP), Google's Android phones (the ARM TEE), upcoming high-end ARM processors in general (I think they were calling it "CryptoIsland"?), high-end Intel processors (SGX) and high-end AMD processors (SEV). The whole point of Asylo is to provide a hardware abstraction layer to make applications portable across different enclaves; it's the opposite of reinforcing Intel's position.

Confiks 8y ago
> The whole point of Asylo is to provide a hardware abstraction layer to make applications portable across different enclaves; it's the opposite of reinforcing Intel's position. Yes, I shouldn't have conflated Asylo and SGX (or TEEs in general – where SGX is now dominant for the remote attestation model). The concern was with SGX, maybe even specifically to it being used together with other TEEs for ubiquitous DRM on consumer devices. Asylo could indeed drive competition in the case of remote attestation.
- jjoergensen 8y ago
  Would I need a commercial Intel license to use it for Intel SGX? I ask because they don't seem to hand out the licenses to everyone. https://software.intel.com/en-us/sgx/commercial-use-license-request https://software.intel.com/en-us/sgx/commercial-use-license-... https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/intel-software-guard-extensions-intel-sgx/topic/759356 https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/intel-software-guard...
annasapek 8y ago
Disclaimer: I am from the Asylo team. That’s exactly the level of abstraction that we’re looking to provide in Asylo. The parent post linked to the asylo/identity/sgx directory, which contains SGX-specific implementations of some of our higher-level identity abstractions [1]. For instance, “EnclaveAssertionGenerator” defines an interface for generating attestations bound to an enclave’s identity, and “sgx::LocalAssertionGenerator” (an internal construct to our framework) provides that functionality for SGX. [1] https://github.com/google/asylo/tree/master/asylo/identity https://github.com/google/asylo/tree/master/asylo/identity