On 1999-09-29 Atmel announced a partnership with IBM to make crypto processors for the IBM PC 300 PL. From the press release [1]: The hardware core of the security system is a cryptographic processor developed by Atmel that can both store secret keys in nonvolatile memory, and compute public key functions using those secret keys. Among these functions is generation of signatures, secure storage and transmission of various secret keys. The IC protects against many of the kinds of breaches that hackers might use to gain secret information. The press release gives no details of the crypto technology used. A search page [2] has a pick-box to let you find products featuring crypto, but such a search comes up empty. IBM's site has no announcement that I could find about the Atmel partnership nor any information about crypto in the IBM PC 300 PL. A local (Colorado) newspaper story [3] either quotes a spokesman who doesn't know what he's talking about, or Atmel is in the running for a snake-oil award: "...uses crypotographic [sic] algorhythms [sic] -- complicated math formulas -- within the chip's circuitry to dictate how the information is sent... [The company is] so serious about the chip's security that it isn't publishing the chip's 'specs' ... Doing so might enable someone to breach the chip's security features, [a company spokesman] said." The piece is titled "Atmel, IBM unveil world's first computer security chip." Guess the reporter never heard of Clipper. Comments? Product knowledge? Press release [1] http://www.atmel.com/atmel/news/19990929.htm Product search [2] http://www.atmel.com/atmel/products/select38.htm Local newspaper story [3] http://gazette.com/weekly/ibiz/biz9.html _____________________________________________________ Keith Dawson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://dawson.nu/ Layer of ash separates morning and evening milk.
