> The cryptography community outside the military-industrial complex today is
> largely primed to call out Clipper Chip style bullshit whenever it happens.
> (See also: the EU’s ChatControl.)
It’s worth noting that we rarely get mad about the clipper chip problem because, honestly, it’s basically standard now. Almost every device we own—laptops, phones, servers—runs a secure enclave or similar signed security processor that sits above the hypervisor level.
We’ve been accepting this architecture for over a decade. Yes, there are efforts to limit their power, but they’re becoming a bigger threat, not smaller. And let’s be real, these things leak. We’ve seen master keys and exploits in Xbox, PS3/4, and various Nvidia incidents. There are probably others out there that we just don’t know about yet.
It’s worth noting that we rarely get mad about the clipper chip problem because, honestly, it’s basically standard now. Almost every device we own—laptops, phones, servers—runs a secure enclave or similar signed security processor that sits above the hypervisor level.
We’ve been accepting this architecture for over a decade. Yes, there are efforts to limit their power, but they’re becoming a bigger threat, not smaller. And let’s be real, these things leak. We’ve seen master keys and exploits in Xbox, PS3/4, and various Nvidia incidents. There are probably others out there that we just don’t know about yet.