From: John Young <jya@pipeline.com>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Message Hash: c83fb269394316ddfd27925d71bc5829695d3fbadd4e4c0dfbda3fbcbdc70e10
Message ID: <1.5.4.32.19970216182934.006e00b4@pop.pipeline.com>
Reply To: N/A
UTC Datetime: 1997-02-16 18:35:42 UTC
Raw Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 10:35:42 -0800 (PST)
From: John Young <jya@pipeline.com>
Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 10:35:42 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: DFA
Message-ID: <1.5.4.32.19970216182934.006e00b4@pop.pipeline.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
Paul Bell wrote:
>does anyone know what has happened to DFA, and the people who
>just a few months ago were publishing such encouraging results?
There seems be sustained investigation of DFA, offensive and defensive,
by Biham and Shamir, by Anderson and Kuhn, by the Bellcore team, by
Quisquater and others.
However, the smartcard manufacturers appear to have a role in dampening
publicity about the ongoing research, or at least diminishing the claims of
effectiveness of DFA. Carol Francher, of Motorola, for example, writes
in February IEEE Spectrum:
Technology is a wonderful thing but criminals, too, can use it as new
equipment and techniques become available or less expensive the
barriers to cracking a system may weaken. Recently Bellcore
announced a paper, "Cryptanalysis in the presence of hardware faults"
(available at www.bellcore.com), that proposed a theoretical method for
breaking an asymmetric encryption code once a computer (or a
smartcard microcontroller) had been forced into faulty behavior.
The Smart Card Forum, a multi-industry membership organization
headquartered in Tampa, Fla., has stated that it does not regard this
approach as a real-world risk, since in smartcard applications more
than one technique is used to protect the security of the entire system.
But the Bellcore methodology for breaking algorithms -- as well as
similar theoretical approaches, such as the one taken by two Israeli
researchers, Eli Biham and Adi Shamir -- highlights the need to
analyze and evolve the security of any system continually.
-- "In your pocket: smartcards." <http://jya.com/tee08.htm>
Several of the DFA-type researchers have commented on the smartcard
industry's reluctance to publicize security weaknesses when the push is
on to increase consumer trust and use; see, for example, Anderson and
Kuhn at:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rja14/tamper.html
Quisquater and the SG group also note the reluctance of smartcard
mass-marketers to own up to security shortcomings of which their own
engineers know and fret.
Meanwhile, the DFA proponents and opponents are eagerly absorbing the
continuing DFA-relatged reports, quietly watching one another, and both
sides eying the booming smartcard market for lucrative rewards, as Ms.
Francher suggests: licit and il.
Return to February 1997
Return to “Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>”