Crypto to defend chip IP: snake oil or good idea?

[Alexander Klimov]

On Tue, 25 Jul 2006, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
> EE Times is carrying the following story:
> http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=190900759
> [...]
> I'd be interested in other people's thoughts on this. Can you use DRM
> to protect something worth not eight dollars but eight million?

If I understand correctly, it is not similar to DRM, it is more like
dongles used in some software <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongle>,
but intended to protect hardware instead of software. I guess it has
the same problems as dongles: either you have to implement some major
functionality on the dongle (and thus greatly complicate development),
or you simply include something like ``dongle present?'' queries in
several key points (and thus make it trivial to crack by anyone
skilled in the art).

Experience with the software dongles shows that this idea works in a
limited number of cases, for example, it works if one wants to protect
a game that has high value during its first month after the release
(cracking a strong protection may take some time), but dongles are
almost useless for protection of long-life programs (although it can
be very hard to crack a protection if the dongle is not given to the
cracker).

I don't know what is easier to `fix': a software program given as a
binary code or a hardware design given as a net-list, but you are
absolutely right, it is very important to consider that software is
routinely cracked by hobbyist, whereas hardware must withstand more
organized efforts.

-- 
Regards,
ASK

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