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diff --git a/content/posts/ihsm-worlds-first-diy-hsm/index.rst b/content/posts/ihsm-worlds-first-diy-hsm/index.rst new file mode 100644 index 0000000..370a053 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/posts/ihsm-worlds-first-diy-hsm/index.rst @@ -0,0 +1,41 @@ +--- +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 "posts/hsm-basics/index.rst">}} |