A PrivacyCA for Anonymity and Trust

  • Authors:
  • Martin Pirker;Ronald Toegl;Daniel Hein;Peter Danner

  • Affiliations:
  • Institute for Applied Information Processing and Communications (IAIK), Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria A---8010;Institute for Applied Information Processing and Communications (IAIK), Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria A---8010;Institute for Applied Information Processing and Communications (IAIK), Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria A---8010;Institute for Applied Information Processing and Communications (IAIK), Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria A---8010

  • Venue:
  • Trust '09 Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Trusted Computing
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

Trusted Computing (TC) as envisioned by the Trusted Computing Group promises a solution to the problem of establishing a trust relationship between otherwise unrelated platforms. In order to achieve this goal the platform has to be equipped with a Trusted Platform Module (TPM), which is true for millions of contemporary personal computers. The TPM provides solutions for measuring the state of a platform and reporting it in an authentic way to another entity. The same cryptographic means that ensure the authenticity also allow unique identification of the platform and therefore pose a privacy problem. To circumvent this problem the TCG proposed a trusted third party, the Privacy Certification Authority (PrivacyCA). Unfortunately, currently no PrivacyCA is generally available. In this paper we introduce our freely available implementation of a PrivacyCA. In addition, our PrivacyCA is itself a trusted service. It is capable of reporting its state to clients. Furthermore, we use a novel way to minimize the Trusted Computing Base of Java-based applications in conjunction with hardware-supported virtualization. We automatically generate the service interface from a structural specification. Thus, to the best of our knowledge, we were not only first to make this crucial service publicly available, but now also provide a trustworthy service whose privacy policy can be attested to its users by employing TC mechanisms.