Trusted Computing Platforms

How can one trust computation taking place at a remote site, particularly if a party at that site might have motivation to subvert this trust? In recent years, industrial efforts have advanced the notion of a "trusted computing platform" as a building block. Through a conspiracy of hardware and software magic, these platforms attempt to solve this remote trust problem, to preserve various critical properties against various types of adversaries.

How can one trust computation taking place at a remote site, particularly if a party at that site might have motivation to subvert this trust? In recent years, industrial efforts have advanced the notion of a "trusted computing platform" as a building block. Through a conspiracy of hardware and software magic, these platforms attempt to solve this remote trust problem, to preserve various critical properties against various types of adversaries.

In this book the authors first describe the background of trusted platforms and trusted computing and speculate about the future. They then describe the technical features and architectures of trusted platforms from several different perspectives, finally explaining second-generation TPMs, including a technical description intended to supplement the Trusted Computing Group's TPM2 specifications. The intended audience is IT managers and engineers and graduate students in information security.

How can one trust computation taking place at a remote site, particularly if a party at that site might have motivation to subvert this trust? In recent years, industrial efforts have advanced the notion of a "trusted computing platform" as a building block. Through a conspiracy of hardware and software magic, these platforms attempt to solve this remote trust problem, to preserve various critical properties against various types of adversaries.
However, these current efforts are just points on a larger continuum, which ranges from earlier work on secure coprocessor design and applications, through TCPA/TCG, to recent academic developments. Without wading through stacks of theses and research literature, the general computer science reader cannot see this big picture.

How can one trust computation taking place at a remote site, particularly if a party at that site might have motivation to subvert this trust? In recent years, industrial efforts have advanced the notion of a "trusted computing platform" as a building block. Through a conspiracy of hardware and software magic, these platforms attempt to solve this remote trust problem, to preserve various critical properties against various types of adversaries.

From early prototypes and proposed applications, this book surveys the longer history of amplifying small amounts of hardware security into broader system security