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Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 18:36:05 +0100
From: strange@nsk.yi.org
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Subject: Re: Secure Sofware Key
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    ygingras@ygingras.net on Tue, Sep 03, 2002 at 09:03:40PM -0400
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On Tue, Sep 03, 2002 at 09:03:40PM -0400, Yannick Gingras wrote:
> This make me wonder about the relative protection of smart cards.  They have 
> an internal procession unit around 4MHz.  Can we consider them as trusted 
> hardware ?  The ability to ship smart cards periodicaly uppon cashing of a 
> monthly subscription fee would not raise too much the cost of "renting" the 
> system.  Smart card do their own self encryption.  Can they be used to 
> decrypt data needed by the system ?  The input of the system could me mangled 
> and the would keep a reference of how long it was in service.
> 
> This sounds really feasible but I may be totaly wrong.  I may also be wrong 
> about the safety of a smart card.  
> 
> What do you think ?

That's similar to using hard-locks (either the old parallel, or the new
usb).

The problem is that that piece of hardware is trustworthy, but the rest of
the PC isn't, so a cracker just needs to simulate the lock/smart card, or
peek at the executable after the lock has been deactivated.

Regards,
Luciano Rocha

-- 
Consciousness: that annoying time between naps.

