[Cryptography] Suite B after today's news

Ray Dillinger bear at sonic.net
Sun Sep 8 13:24:54 EDT 2013


On 09/08/2013 10:13 AM, Thor Lancelot Simon wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 07, 2013 at 07:19:09PM -0700, Ray Dillinger wrote:
>>
>> Given good open-source software, an FPGA implementation would provide greater
>> assurance of security.
>
> How sure are you that an FPGA would actually be faster than you can already
> achieve in software?
>
> Thor

Depends on the operation.  If it's linear, somewhat certain.  If it's
parallizable or streamable, then very certain indeed.

But that's not even the main point.  It's the 'assurance of security' part
that's important, not the speed.  After you've burned something into an
FPGA (by toggle board if necessary) you can trust that FPGA to run the same
algorithm unmodified unless someone has swapped out the physical device.

Given the insecurity of most net-attached operating systems, the same is
simply not true of most software.  Given the insecurity of chip fabs and
their management, the same is not true of special-purpose ASICs.

				Ray







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