Hardware Support for Tamper-Resistant and Copy-Resistant Software

  • Authors:

  • Dan Boneh;David Lie;Pat Lincoln;John Mitchell;Mark Mitchell

  • Affiliations:

  • -;-;-;-;-

  • Venue:
  • Hardware Support for Tamper-Resistant and Copy-Resistant Software
  • Year:
  • 2000

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Abstract

Although there have been many attempts to develop code transformations that yield tamper-resistant software, no reliable software-only methods are known. Motivated by numerous potential applications, we investigate a prototype hardware mechanism that supports software tamper-resistance with an atomic decrypt-and-execute operation. Our hardware architecture uses a novel combination of standard architectural units. As usual, security has its costs. In this design, the most difficult security tradeoffs involve testability and performance.