On Sat, 3 Aug 2002, AARG! Anonymous wrote: > The TPM public key is called the Endorsement key - this is the key which > is signed by the manufacturer and which proves that the TPM is a valid > implementation of TCPA. Here is what section 9.2 of the TCPA spec says > about it: > > : A TPM only has one asymmetric endorsement key pair. Due to the nature of > : this key pair, both the public and private parts of the key have privacy > : and security concerns. > : > : Exporting the PRIVEK from the TPM must not occur. This is for security > : reasons. The PRIVEK is a decryption key and never performs any signature > : operations. > : > : Exporting the public PUBEK from the TPM under controlled circumstances > : is allowable. Access to the PUBEK must be restricted to entities that > : have a "need to know." This is for privacy reasons.
And in another message: I said: => In other words, the manufacturer has access to all your data because => they have the master storage key. => => Why would everyone want to give one manufacturer that much power? AARGH! said: >It's not quite that bad. I mentioned the blinding. What happens is >that before the master storage key is encrypted, it is XOR'd with a >random value, which is also output by the TPM along with the encrypted >recovery blob. You save them both, but only the encrypted blob gets >sent to the manufacturer. So when the manufacturer decrypts the data, >he doesn't learn your secrets. > >The system is cumbersome, but not an obvious security leak. Who owns PRIVEK? Who controls PRIVEK? That's who own's TCPA. And then there was this comment in yet another message: >In addition, we assume that programs are able to run "unmolested"; >that is, that other software and even the user cannot peek into the >program's memory and manipulate it or learn its secrets. Palladium has >a feature called "trusted space" which is supposed to be some special >memory that is immune from being compromised. We also assume that >all data sent between computers is encrypted using something like SSL, >with the secret keys being held securely by the client software (hence >unavailable to anyone else, including the users). Just how "immune" is this program space? Does the operator/owner of the machine control it, or does the owner of PRIVEK control it? So the owner of PRIVEK can send a trojan into my machine and take it over anytime they want. Cool, kind of like the movie "Collosis" where a super computer takes over the world. The more I learn about TCPA, the more I don't like it. Patience, persistence, truth, Dr. mike