Hardware Support for Tamper-Resistant and Copy-Resistant Software
Dan Boneh, David Lie, Pat Lincoln, John Mitchell, Mark L. Mitchell · 2000
Although there have been many attempts to develop code transformations that yield tamper-resistant software, no reliable software-only methods are known. Motivated by numerous potential applications, we investigate a prototype hardware mechanism that supports software tamper-resistance with an atomic decrypt-and-execute operation. Our hardware architecture uses a novel combination of standard architectural units. As usual, security has its costs. In this design, the most difficult security tradeoffs involve testability and performance.