Centralized Attestation Device Using Rolling Hashes
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing attestation methods in computing systems require resource-intensive cryptographic operations for each new measurement, leading to inefficiencies in computing resources and network bandwidth usage.
Innovation Solution
A centralized attester device performs attestation on behalf of multiple platform components using a rolling hash value, generating a hash key from the current hash value to sign challenges, thereby reducing the need for resource-intensive operations and simplifying evidence representation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If each component performs individual attestation with separate cryptographic operations, then measurement accuracy and trust verification are improved, but computing resource consumption and network bandwidth usage increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple individual component attestations into a single centralized attestation operation. The attester aggregates measurements from multiple platform components and performs one cryptographic signing operation instead of requiring each component to perform separate operations, thereby reducing computing resource consumption while maintaining trust verification reliability
Solution Approach 2:
The centralized attester device performs universal attestation functions for multiple different platform components. A single attester can attest to the integrity of numerous components across the platform, eliminating the need for each component to have its own dedicated attestation mechanism and reducing overall system resource usage
2Reliability
If each component performs individual attestation with separate cryptographic operations, then measurement accuracy and trust verification are improved, but network bandwidth usage increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple attestation results into a single consolidated attestation response. Instead of transmitting separate attestation data for each component, the system combines them into one unified attestation that can be verified in a single network transaction, significantly reducing network bandwidth consumption while preserving trust verification capabilities
3Measurement precision
If comprehensive attestation software is implemented across all components, then measurement precision and security are improved, but device complexity and software maintenance difficulty increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the complex attestation software from individual platform components and concentrates it in a dedicated centralized attester. This separation allows the platform components to remain simple while the attester handles all the sophisticated measurement aggregation and cryptographic operations, reducing device complexity across the system while maintaining measurement precision
Solution Approach 2:
The centralized attester acts as an intermediary between platform components and the verification system. It handles all the complex software operations for measurement collection, aggregation, and attestation generation, shielding the platform components from complexity while ensuring precise measurements are captured and verified
Data Source
AI summary
Provided are computing systems that feature a centralized attestation device able to perform attestation on behalf of a number of different platform components. More particularly, the present disclosure provides extensible mechanisms for representing trustworthiness statements by an attester device within a platform either as implicit attestation or explicit attestation. Thus, according to one aspect of the present disclosure, a computing system can include an attester device that implements a hybrid model for presenting evidence of measurements of all the components in a platform to a verifier.