[Cryptography] RISC-V isn't the answer

[Henry Baker]

Ok, so I've reviewed a number of discussions of
the RISC-V architecture, and my conclusion is that
RISC-V isn't going to be a "silver bullet" for
high security & privacy applications.

Apparently, the first to utilize RISC-V for high
security applications will be nVidia, who has
chosen RISC-V as the follow-on to their current
"Falcon" high security coprocessor.  Their Falcon
handles DRM'd media, so there are $billions at
stake if RISC-V replaces Falcon in new designs.

Although RISC-V was a "clean sheet" design in
2011 (?), a lot of water has gone under the
bridge since then (cough, Snowden, cough), and
I don't believe that RISC-V adequately
addresses all of the side-channel issues that
have been discovered in the mean time.

Once nVidia starts shipping chips with RISC-V
front-ends, it will be interesting to see how
quickly these processors get attacked.  (To my
knowledge, nVidia's current Falcon processor
has yet to be successfully attacked.)