Welome to the Internet, here's your private key

[Bill Frantz]

At 6:37 AM -0800 2/5/02, Arnold G. Reinhold wrote:
>I'd argue that the RSA and DSA situations can be made equivalent if
>the card has some persistent memory.

I expect you could initialize the random data in that memory during
manufacture with little loss of real security.  (If you are concerned about
the card's manufacturer, then you have bigger problems.  If anyone does,
the manufacturer has the necessary equipment to extract data from secret
parts of the card, install Trojans etc.)

Note that if the card generates its own keys, it needs the same kind of
memory to store the keys as it needs to store a random seed.

Cheers - Bill


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