Recent Posts by Dan Anderson

In a previous article I mentioned SPARC T4 processor optimizations added to OpenSSL. The SPARC T4 processor supports new instructions to assist AES, RSA, SHA, and other crypto and hash algorithms. These optimizations were added in Oracle Solaris 11 using a new OpenSSL "t4 engine". The OpenSSL t4 engine would automatically detect if it's running on a SPARC T4 platform and engage it's optimized crypto algorithms without manual intervention (either from the CLI or API)....

TPM Key Migration in Solaris Introduction alt="Infineon TPM 1.2 chip" width="180" height="135" border="0" />Solaris platforms use the TPM 1.2 chip "TPM" stands for "Trusted Platform Module," a hardware device that provides many security functions, including storage of encryption keys. For more information, see Wylly's blog on Solaris 11 TPM Support. In Solaris 11.1, Wyllys Ingersoll added the ability to migrate keys from one TPM to another TPM.TPM migration is is especially...

Update 2016: everything here applies to subsequent Oracle SPARC processors since T4, including the SPARC M7/T7 line. Further optimizations and speedups are "under the hood." A question that often comes up when running applications on SPARC T4 systems is "How can I tell if hardware crypto accleration is being used?" To review, the SPARC T4 processor includes a crypto unit that supports several crypto instructions.For hardware crypto these include 11 AES instructions, 4...

Toorcon 2012 Information Security Conference San Diego, CA, http://www.toorcon.org/ Dan Anderson, October 2012It's almost Halloween, and we all know what that means—yes, of course, it's time for another Toorcon Conference! Toorcon is an annual conference for people interested in computer security. This includes the whole range of hackers, computer hobbyists, professionals, security consultants, press, law enforcement, prosecutors, FBI, etc.We're at Toorcon 14—see earlier...

SHA-1 is a "hash" or "digest" operation that produces a 160 bit (20 byte) checksum value on arbitrary data, such as a file. It is intended to uniquely identify text and to verify it hasn't been modified. Max Locktyukhin and others at Intel have improved the performance of the SHA-1 digest algorithm using multiple techniques. This code has been incorporated into Solaris 11 and is available in the Solaris Crypto Frameworkvia the libmd(3LIB), the industry-standard libpkcs11(3LIB)...

Optimizing AES modes on Solaris for Intel Westmere Review AES is a strong method of symmetric (secret-key) encryption. It is a U.S. FIPS-approved cryptographic algorithm (FIPS 197) that operates on 16-byte blocks. AES has been available since 2001 and is widely used. However, AES by itself has a weakness. AES encryption isn't usually used by itself because identical blocks of plaintext are always encrypted into identical blocks of ciphertext.This encryption can be easily...

Solaris AESNI OpenSSL Engine for Intel Westmere Cryptography is a major component of secure e-commerce. Since cryptography is compute intensive and adds a significant load to applications, such as SSL web servers (https), crypto performance is an important factor. Providing accelerated crypto hardware greatly helps these applications and will help lead to a wider adoption of cryptography, and lower cost, in e-commerce and other applications. The Intel Westmere microprocessor...

SPARC T4 OpenSSL Engine Cryptography is a major component of secure e-commerce. Since cryptography is compute intensive and adds a significant load to applications, such as SSL web servers (https), crypto performance is an important factor. Providing accelerated crypto hardware greatly helps these applications and will help lead to a wider adoption of cryptography, and lower cost, in e-commerce and other applications. The SPARC T4 microprocessor has several new...

Today our building's sign in San Diego. California was changed from the purple Sun Microsystems sign to the red Oracle sign. However, the name Sun still lives on as a trademark of Oracle for our powerful line of SPARC and X86 servers, backed by thousands of engineers, technical, and support people. So, support the name and buy our servers! At the Santa Clara, California Campus, the original Sun Microsystems sign is preserved inside the courtyard behind the clock tower.