International Business Machines Corporation

Other

Steve Harris Weingart

Sean William Smith

Voya Rista Markovich

Konstantinos I Papathomas

Jane M Shaw

Donald Seton Farquhar

Claudius Feger

Mark David Poliks

Glen P Double

George Szeparowycz

Sampath Purushothaman

Marie Angelopoulos

Robert J Von Gutfeld

Chai Wah Wu

Charles Philippe Tresser

David Michael Chess

Ian N Whalley

Vincenzo Condorelli

Elaine Rivette Palmer

Pradeep Kumar Dubey

Paritosh Dinubhai Patel

Teresita Ordonez Graham

Marco Martens

Gaurav Aggarwal

Bruce A Scott

Nabil M Amer

Michel Henri Theodore Hack

Ashutosh Kulshreshtha

Bradley J DeBauche

Mark John Lindemann

Vernon Ralph Austel

Jeffrey Kenneth Kravitz

Gianluca Pedrina

Mario Bizzaro

Electronic assemblies, especially one containing volatile memory, used a flexible membrane with conducting lines which acts as an intrusion sensor against chemical and mechanical attacks. The lines are fabricated from inherently conducting polymers which are solution processed and directly patterned. The material was applied to a flexible polymer film by spin coating and patterned by application of a resist, followed by exposure/development of the resist and transferring the image into the polyaniline by reactive ion etching techniques. The conducting lines have high conductivity, tranparency properties which made them difficult to detect and possess excellent adhesion to the substrate film, as well as to the potting material which enclosed the structure. They also offered lightweight advantages over conventionally filled materials. These materials can also be used in conjunction with conventional conductor materials to further enhance protection against intrusion by sophisticated mechanical means.

Data protection by detection of intrusion into electronic assemblies

A method (and system) for guaranteeing authenticity of an object, includes providing a sample of material obtainable only by at least one of chemical and physical processes such that the sample is random and not reproducible, associating a number reproducibly to the sample by using a specific reader, and forming at least one coded version of the number, the at least one coded version being obtained by a key signature, and the version being recorded into an area of the object.

Method and apparatus for producing duplication- and imitation-resistant identifying marks on objects, and duplication- and duplication- and imitation-resistant objects

A structure and method for forming a tamper respondent electronic circuit enclosure that includes an integrated circuit structure, a mesh structure surrounding the integrated circuit structure, and a sealed enclosure surrounding the mesh structure. The mesh structure includes a layer of flexible dielectric having a first side and a second side, a screen-printed pattern of flexible electrically conductive first circuit lines forming a first resistor network on the first side, and a photo lithographically-formed pattern of flexible electrically conductive second circuit lines forming a second resistor network on the second side.

Tamper-responding encapsulated enclosure having flexible protective mesh structure

An improved plug and cable combination for connecting information appliances to an information socket and to a power socket, comprising a power conductor for transferring power from the power socket to the information appliance. The power conductor having a power plug at a first end, the power plug adapted to connect to the power socket. An information conductor for transferring information from the information socket to the information appliance. The information conductor having an information plug at a first end, the information plug adapted to connect to the information socket. A second end of the power conductor and a second end of the information conductor terminate at the information appliance. The information plug and the power plug having a plug joining means disposed thereon, wherein the plug joining means being capable to integrate the information plug and the power plug into an integrated plug.

Plug and cable for information appliances

An apparatus for permitting access to protected code, protected data or protected devices only when a computer system is in a trusted state, where said trusted state occurs only when said system is executing trusted code under a set of preselected conditions. This apparatus also has a device for exiting the trusted state and for preventing access to protected code, data and devices when the trusted state is exited. The computer system is also programmed to automatically generate a disabling signal upon the completion of execution of trusted code, and this disabling signal will result in the prevention of access to protected devices or code.

Hardware access control locking

A method and apparatus is presented for establishing provable integrity or untampered state in secure devices. It employs active tamper response; generating authentication secrets inside the device via real hardware randomness to minimize risk of compromised factory machines; activating tamper response at a trusted point of trust to protect against attacks and/or continually certify the integrity of the device along shipping channels and at user sites; and allowing for all keys to be regenerated so that in accordance with sound cryptographic practice no one needs to depend on permanent keys. The point of trust is a central authority that is trusted by all parties that need to trust the provable untampered state of the secure device. At any point the certifying authority authenticates the integrity and/or untampered state of the device, and re-issues a new certificate for that device. Alternate embodiments enable the device to be shipped without its tamper-response enabled, and/or to re-initialize and certify devices that have been erased or zeroized. Particular methods are used to restrict access of the device's central private key only to trustworthy code in the device. This invention minimizes the parties that one must trust in order to trust in the alleged integrity and/or untampered state of a device, while providing disaster protection with simplicity of device shipping, use and installation.

Establishing and employing the provable untampered state of a device

An apparatus, system and method for secure code-downloading and information exchange, in the full generality of complex code dependencies while considering the implications of mutual distrust and hot-swapping. Included are secure techniques wherein an authority signs code from another party upon which that authority depends in order to establish that a trusted execution environment, is being preserved. Trusted code is employed to ensure that proprietary data is destroyed, disabled, and/or made unreadable, when a change causes the trusted execution environment to cease holding to a certain security level. A carefully constructed key structure is employed to ensure that communications allegedly from particular code in a particular environment can be authenticated as such. Authenticity of code that decides the authenticity of public-key signatures, and/or the authenticity of other code is cared for. In particular, the loading code that performs these tasks may itself be reloadable. Authenticity is maintained in physically secure coprocessors with multiple levels of dependent software that is independently downloadable by mutually suspicious authorities, and in physically secure coprocessors whose software has sufficient richness and complexity so as to be certainly permeable. Recoverability is provided for physically secure coprocessors from code of arbitrary evil running at arbitrary privilege.

Securely downloading and executing code from mutually suspicious

A port connector of a computing system is provided with a flexible electrical contact for determining the presence of the electrically grounded flange of a cable connector which may be attached to the port connector. Using this feature, the computing system can determine whether a peripheral device is attached to the port connector by means of a cable.

Apparatus for detecting cable attachment

A means of making a digital signal processing function perform independently of the system processor and appear as a hardware FIFO. The architecture of the present invention comprises a digital signal processing means connected between the data output of a first FIFO buffer and the data input of a second FIFO buffer, a control means for controlling the digital signal processing means as a function of the presence and absence of data in the first FIFO buffer and said second FIFO buffer and control signals received from a source of control signals. Data throughput is performed asynchronously and independently of the system environment and comprises the following steps: receiving data on the data input of the first FIFO buffer, transferring that data to the digital signal processor, processing the data, then transferring the processed data to the second FIFO buffer to be output when the data receiver is ready to accept to data.

Externally controlled DSP with input/output FIFOs operating

The present invention provides an intrusion barrier for protecting against mechanical or chemical intrusion into an electronic assembly, especially one containing volatile memory. It includes a screen material surrounding the electronic assembly which screen material has formed thereon fine conductive lines in close proximity to each other. The lines are formed of conductive particles of material dispersed in a solidified matrix of a material which loses its mechanical integrity when removed from the screen. An electrical supply and signal detection circuit is provided which generates an output signal responsive to a given change in resistance of the conductive lines, such that if the resistance changes are a result of a mechanical or chemical attack, a signal is generated which can cause the erasure of the volatile memory. Also, radiation detection and temperature sensing circuits are provided to cause erasure of the volatile memory responsive to detection of a given intensity of radiation or a temperature below a given value.

The present invention provides an intrusion barrier for protecting against mechanical or chemical intrusion into an electronic assembly, especially one containing volatile memory. It includes a screen material surrounding the electronic assembly which screen material has formed thereon fine conductive lines in close proximity to each other. The lines are formed of conductive particles of material dispersed in a solidified matrix of a material which looses its mechanical integrity when removed from the screen. An electrical supply and signal detection circuit is provided which generates an output signal responsive to a given change in resistance of the conductive lines, such that if the resistance changes are a result of a mechanical or chemical attack, a signal is generated which can cause the erasure of the volatile memory. Also, preferably radiation detection and temperature sensing circuits are provided to cause erasure of the volatile memory responsive to detection of a given intensity of radiation or a temperature below a given value.

A tamper-resistant package for protection of information stored in electronic circuitry includes apparatus for distributing electro-magnetic energy within a region occupied by the circuit to be protected. A sensing arrangement senses the distribution of the energy. In a preferred embodiment, electrical current is distributed through a coil or coils within which the circuit to be protected resides. The sensor includes an integrating circuit, and the output of the integrating circuit is presented to both a sample and hold circuit and to a comparator. The comparator has high and low reference input terminals which are fed from a voltage divider to which is also applied an output from the sample and hold circuit. The high and low reference inputs to the comparator are, by reason of the sample and hold circuit, adaptive. The comparator produces an output if its input is outside the limits established by the high and low reference inputs; that output of the comparator is taken as evidence of tampering. An impairing device responds to the comparator output to obliterate, destroy or otherwise impair the information stored in the electronic circuit which is being protected.

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Boca Raton, FL, United States of America

Steve Harris Weingart