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SIMPL Systems, or: Can We Design Cryptographic Hardware without Secret Key Information?

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SOFSEM 2011: Theory and Practice of Computer Science (SOFSEM 2011)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 6543))

Abstract

This paper discusses a new cryptographic primitive termed SIMPL system. Roughly speaking, a SIMPL system is a special type of Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) which possesses a binary description that allows its (slow) public simulation and prediction. Besides this public key like functionality, SIMPL systems have another advantage: No secret information is, or needs to be, contained in SIMPL systems in order to enable cryptographic protocols — neither in the form of a standard binary key, nor as secret information hidden in random, analog features, as it is the case for PUFs. The cryptographic security of SIMPLs instead rests on (i) a physical assumption on their unclonability, and (ii) a computational assumption regarding the complexity of simulating their output. This novel property makes SIMPL systems potentially immune against many known hardware and software attacks, including malware, side channel, invasive, or modeling attacks.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Science Department, Technische Universität München, Boltzmannstr. 3, 85748, Garching

    Ulrich Rührmair

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  1. Ulrich Rührmair
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Ivana Černá, Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Informatics, Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University, Botanicka 68 a, 602 00, Brno, Czech Republic

    Ivana Černá

  2. Department of Software Engineering, University of Szeged, Árpád tér 2., 6720, Szeged, Hungary

    Tibor Gyimóthy

  3. Informationstechnologie und Ausbildung, CAB F 16, F 13.1, Universitätstraße 6, ETH Zürich, 8092, Zürich, Switzerland

    Juraj Hromkovič

  4. School of History and Anthropology, Queen’s University, 15 University Square, BT7 1NN, Belfast, UK

    Keith Jefferey

  5. Department of Computer Science, Comenius University, 84248, Bratislava, Slovakia

    Rastislav Králović

  6. EURECOM, 2229 2229 Route des Crêtes, BP 193, 06904, Sophia Antipolis cedex, France

    Marko Vukolić

  7. Institute of Theoretical Computer Science, ETH Zürich, IFW E49.1, Haldeneggsteig 4, 8092, Zürich, Switzerland

    Stefan Wolf

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Rührmair, U. (2011). SIMPL Systems, or: Can We Design Cryptographic Hardware without Secret Key Information?. In: Černá, I., et al. SOFSEM 2011: Theory and Practice of Computer Science. SOFSEM 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6543. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-18381-2_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-18381-2_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-18380-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-18381-2

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