[E-Lang] Re: [EROS-Arch] Liquid software requirements.

[Ben Laurie]

"Mark S. Miller" wrote:
> For PK operations, it would indeed be very cool to have special hardware for
> doing modular exponentiation of large integers.  I remember a chip design
> for this by Rivest et al from about 15 years ago.  Has anything happened
> with this idea?

Errr, just a little - there's a rather large industry built up around
fast exponentiators. :-)

>  Will elliptic curves make this issue irrelevant?

No. They still require big sums, just different ones.

> AFAIK, the only compelling needs for special purpose hardware are good
> entropy and TEMPEST shielding.  (And Opaque Boxes as well, if you're into
> that sort of thing.)

There are at least two other compelling needs: performance and security
- special purpose hardware can protect private keys.

Cheers,

Ben.

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