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+---
+title: "New Paper on Inertial Hardware Security Modules"
+date: 2021-11-23T23:42:20+01:00
+---
+
+World's First DIY HSM
+=====================
+
+Last week, Prof. Dr. Björn Scheuermann and I have `published our first joint paper on Hardware Security Modules
+<https://tches.iacr.org/index.php/TCHES/article/view/9290>`__. In our paper, we introduce Inertial Hardware Security
+Modules (IHSMs), a new way of building high-security HSMs from basic components.  I think the technology we demonstrate
+in our paper might allow some neat applications where some civil organization deploys a service that no one, not even
+they themselves, can snoop on. Anyone can built an IHSM without needing any fancy equipment, which makes me optimistic
+that maybe the ideas of the `Cypherpunk movement <https://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html>`__ aren't obsolete
+after all, despite even the word "crypto" having been co-opted by radical capitalist environmental destructionists.
+
+An IHSM is basically an ultra-secure enclosure for something like a server or a raspberry pi that even someone with
+unlimited resources would have a really hard time cracking without destroying all data stored in it. The principle of an
+IHSM is the same as that of a `normal HSM`_. You have a payload that contains really secret data. There's really no way
+to prevent an attacker with physical access to the thing from opening it given enough time and abrasive discs for their
+angle grinder. So what you do instead is that you make it self-destruct its secrets within microseconds of anyone
+tampering with it. Usually, such HSMs are used for storing credit card pins and other financial data. They're expensive
+as fuck, all the while being about the same processing speed as a smartphone.  Traditional HSMs use printed or
+lithographically patterned conductive foils for their security mesh. These foils are not an off-the-shelf component and
+are made in a completely custom manufacturing process. To create your own, you would have to re-engineer that entire
+process and probably spend some serious money on production machines. 
+
+Inertial HSMs take the concept of traditional HSMs, but replace the usual tamper detection mesh with a few security mesh
+PCBs. These PCBs are coarser than traditional meshes by orders of magnitude, and would alone not even be close to enough
+to keep out even a moderately motivated attacker. IHSMs fix this issue by spinning the entire tamper detection mesh at
+very high speed.  To tamper with the mesh, an attacker would have to stop it. This, in turn, can be easily detected by
+the mesh's alarm circuitry using a simple accelerometer as a rotation sensor.
+
+In our paper, we have shown a working prototype of the core concepts one needs to build such an IHSM.  To build an IHSM
+you only need a basic electronics lab. I built the prototype in our paper at home during one of Germany's COVID
+lockdowns.  You can have a look at our code and CAD on `my git <https://git.jaseg.de/ihsm.git>`__. What is missing right
+now is an integration of all of these fragments into something cohesive that an interested person with the right tools
+could go out and build. We are planning to release this sort of documentation at some point, but right now we are
+focusing our effort on the next iteration of the design instead. Stay tuned for updates ;)
+
+.. _`normal HSM`: {{<ref "blog/hsm-basics/index.rst">}}