OpenTitan: An open-source silicon root of trust from lowRISC
1–10 of 19 posts
Re: OpenTitan: An open-source silicon root of trust from lowRISC
#2What application does a hardware-backed root of trust have for more consumer/non-server products like laptops/phones?
Dos this differ substantially from a TPM? Could it be used to verify integrity of a system from power-on to finishing booting say a Linux distro?
Re: OpenTitan: An open-source silicon root of trust from lowRISC
#3What application does a hardware-backed root of trust have for more consumer/non-server products like laptops/phones? Dos this differ substantially from a TPM? Could it be used to verify integrity of a system from power-on to finishing booting say a Linux distro?
The page draws parallels to Google’s Titan security chip, so I’d assume it can verify the boot chain.
Re: OpenTitan: An open-source silicon root of trust from lowRISC
#4To clarify this is just open source fpga code. It's not an open chip. Yet. It does however get us one step towards open silicon. An open source root of trust would be the most useful application for open silicon initiatives. I'd argue anything that touches key material should be auditable.
Put another way, you wouldn't trust a proprietary cryptographic algorithm, why would you trust a black box chip?
Current chips (including OpenTitan) still need to be fabricated at third party foundries using that foundry's proprietary process design kits ('PDKs') and signing two layers of NDA's. As multiple talks at CHES showcase every year there are a number of shenanigans that can be pulled off between a company like Google releasing verilog code for tapeout and the foundry handing back a 'compiled' chip.
The state of open silicon is somewhat analogous to GNU's efforts to create an open source operating system prior to Linux coming along and implementing an open kernel. We still lack open pdk's though it looks like there have been some recent breakthroughs with two foundries in the US and one in Hong Kong.
Recent advances in open FPGA toolchain environments at least let us simulate open solutions here like OpenTitan even if we can't yet tape them out transparently.
Re: OpenTitan: An open-source silicon root of trust from lowRISC
#5What application does a hardware-backed root of trust have for more consumer/non-server products like laptops/phones? Dos this differ substantially from a TPM? Could it be used to verify integrity of a system from power-on to finishing booting say a Linux distro?
Apparently Google phones and some Chromebooks have a Titan-C chip [1], although it's not clear how it's more secure than the Intel secure boot architecture.
[1] Google managed to build a chip with an un-Google-able name
Re: OpenTitan: An open-source silicon root of trust from lowRISC
#6To clarify this is just open source fpga code. It's not an open chip. Yet. It does however get us one step towards open silicon. An open source root of trust would be the most useful application for open silicon initiatives. I'd argue anything that touches key material should be auditable. Put another way, you wouldn't trust a proprietary cryptographic algorithm, why would you trust a black box chip? Current chips (i…
The question would be: how expensive is it to pay off the NDA-schenannigans for a mostly-obsolete node at a small, practically defunct fab? It should be a competitive advantage at that point.
Re: OpenTitan: An open-source silicon root of trust from lowRISC
#7To clarify this is just open source fpga code. It's not an open chip. Yet. It does however get us one step towards open silicon. An open source root of trust would be the most useful application for open silicon initiatives. I'd argue anything that touches key material should be auditable. Put another way, you wouldn't trust a proprietary cryptographic algorithm, why would you trust a black box chip? Current chips (i…
The question would be: how expensive is it to pay off the NDA-schenannigans for a mostly-obsolete node at a small, practically defunct fab? It should be a competitive advantage at that point.
When I last quoted, about $200k for the Hong Kong guys and 4-5 million for the Minnesota/Florida folks. Hong Kong was a much bigger process node.
Re: OpenTitan: An open-source silicon root of trust from lowRISC
#8To clarify this is just open source fpga code. It's not an open chip. Yet. It does however get us one step towards open silicon. An open source root of trust would be the most useful application for open silicon initiatives. I'd argue anything that touches key material should be auditable. Put another way, you wouldn't trust a proprietary cryptographic algorithm, why would you trust a black box chip? Current chips (i…
There is Verilator (https://github.com/verilator/verilator).
While it, frankly, doesn't hold a candle to the proprietary tools like Synopsys, it's a starting point and serves as a wonderful way to do research and actually learn about hardware.
Re: OpenTitan: An open-source silicon root of trust from lowRISC
#9To clarify this is just open source fpga code. It's not an open chip. Yet. It does however get us one step towards open silicon. An open source root of trust would be the most useful application for open silicon initiatives. I'd argue anything that touches key material should be auditable. Put another way, you wouldn't trust a proprietary cryptographic algorithm, why would you trust a black box chip? Current chips (i…
What's the gate count? It should be a good fit for libresilicon, a 1um open source process.
Re: OpenTitan: An open-source silicon root of trust from lowRISC
#10What application does a hardware-backed root of trust have for more consumer/non-server products like laptops/phones? Dos this differ substantially from a TPM? Could it be used to verify integrity of a system from power-on to finishing booting say a Linux distro?
In addition to secure boot, it could be the basis for hardware security modules like yubikeys.