[Cryptography] trojans in the firmware

Henry Baker hbaker1 at pipeline.com
Sun Feb 22 19:02:27 EST 2015


At 02:00 PM 2/22/2015, Michael Kjörling wrote:
>On 19 Feb 2015 08:12 -0800, from hbaker1 at pipeline.com (Henry Baker):
>> BTW, what's the point of AES encryption on this pre-p0wned device?
>> More security theatre?
>
>Besides what others have already said, it allows you (as in the device manufacturer or firmware vendor) to efficiently implement the "SECURE ERASE" command.
>
>Just generate a new key and overwrite the old one with the new one.

Ummm...  And just how do you expect to "overwrite" the old key with the new key?

Last time I looked, most flash memories implemented a journaling file system, in which it is nearly impossible to overwrite _anything_ with any high degree of probability.

Of course, if I had access to the RAW MTD flash api, then I could do exactly what you suggest.  But the raw MTD api was what I was originally asking for.

If anyone here is aware of any flash evaluation kits/boards that provide a USB interface to the raw MTD api of a decent amount of flash memory (20-100GB), please leg me know.

Virtually every Internet-Of-Things device has some small amount of raw MTD flash, but I was hoping for something approximating a SSD, but programmable.  I found the "Willow" project at UCSD, but so far no one there has replied to my emails.



More information about the cryptography mailing list