[Cryptech Tech] Fwd: [FORGED] Fwd: Status tamper detection and MKM erasure (low dose gamma ray)

[Richard Lamb]

Peter-

I am honored.  Whit has spoken highly about you to me.  ...and thank you
for your responses.

"discern" was the primary concern through sram imprinting accelerated by
radiation
(https://ttu-ir.tdl.org/ttu-ir/handle/2346/58641 )

"affect" is how I might implement a free, high dose gamma ray detector.

...but I certainly defer to your much greater expertise in this area and
eagerly await more knowledge.

Great to hear the bit-flipping defense will probably not cause any IPR
headaches.

Thank you,
-Rick




---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Peter Gutmann <pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz>
Date: Wed, Jun 29, 2016 at 8:38 AM
Subject: RE: [FORGED] [Cryptech Tech] Fwd: Status tamper detection and MKM
erasure (low dose gamma ray)
To: Richard Lamb <slamb at xtcn.com>, "tech at cryptech.is" <tech at cryptech.is>


Richard Lamb <slamb at xtcn.com> writes:

>I have ran across a relatively simple but effective protection against
>attempts to discern memory states using low dose gamma rays such as those
>from a lab Co-60 source.

Do you mean "discern" or "affect"?  Ionizing radiation will cause
single-event
upsets, which is disastrous for non-hardened crypto (as well as permanent
damage from things like neutrons, but that's more detectable), but how do
you
discern memory states with it?

>Only caveat I would point out is this bit flipping has also been used in
the
>standard tamper detection chip used by many HSM vendors (Dallas semi.. I
need
>to look up number). So it may be fall under some IPR from that chip maker.

I wrote about bit-flipping defences in the late 1990s, and I believe it was
used before then but not talked about much, so either the patents will be
close to expiring or there's prior art for them.

Peter.
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