Quoting Brian Graversen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > Second, I'm not sure what is possible yet. Ivan said he know some guy that > could > do tricks with the HSM, so it would be possible to do all kinds of stuff, but > I > think we need to look at the performance side of it, perhaps a software > implementation would be faster, and if we cannot store the shares inside the > HSM, and make the operations without the data leaving the HSM, then the > security benifits would be minimal.
I have just sent mail to the guys at Cryptomathic who know about these tricks with HSM's, will let you know asap. About what we should/could do in general: yes of course it's better to do everything inside the HSM - but just a word of warning: shares and secrets still have to be opened under certain circumstances, so it's also important that one cannot cheat the logic that controls this and this may be outside the box. Even if we cannot do the arithmetic inside the box, I think it is still worth it to have the box do the encryption for permanent storage: it gives a standard and secure solution to the key management problem for the encryption we use. In a software only solution you easily get into a situation where the encryption buys you nothing unless you force the user to key in the key all the time. regards, Ivan _______________________________________________ viff-devel mailing list (http://viff.dk/) viff-devel@viff.dk http://lists.viff.dk/listinfo.cgi/viff-devel-viff.dk
