Secure coprocessors in electronic commerce applications

  • Authors:
  • Bennet Yee;J. D. Tygar

  • Affiliations:
  • Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA;Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA

  • Venue:
  • WOEC'95 Proceedings of the 1st conference on USENIX Workshop on Electronic Commerce - Volume 1
  • Year:
  • 1995

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Abstract

Many researchers believe electronic wallets (secure storage devices that maintain account balances) are the solution to electronic commerce challenges. This paper argues for a more powerful model--a secure coprocessor--that can run a small operating system, run application programs, and also keep secure storage for cryptographic keys and balance information. We have built a system called Dyad, on top of a port of the Mach 3.0 microkernel to the IBM Citadel secure coprocessor. This paper describes the abstract architecture of Dyad and a general discussion of secure coprocessor implementations of a variety of electronic commerce applications: • Copy protection for software • Electronic cash (including a critique of proposed solutions for point-of-sale electronic wallet systems) • Electronic contracts • Secure postage