Voucher Management Engine Automates FDO Ownership Transfers
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Solution Overview
Problem
The implementation of the FIDO Device Onboarding (FDO) protocol for managing ownership vouchers in information handling systems is hindered by the need for digital infrastructure transformations and coordination across the supply chain, slowing down its adoption due to requirements for owners to store and manage public/private key pairs and transfer ownership data.
Innovation Solution
An Information Handling System (IHS) with a voucher management engine that receives ownership vouchers, determines ownership transfers, and automatically generates and provides new ownership transfer data to facilitate seamless ownership changes between owners, simplifying the process by acting as an intermediary in the ownership transfer process.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If owners manually manage public/private key pairs and transfer ownership data according to FDO protocol specifications, then security and protocol compliance are maintained, but the complexity of operation and infrastructure requirements increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a voucher management system that acts as an intermediary between owners and the FDO protocol infrastructure. This system automatically generates ownership transfer data by signing the new owner's public key with the current owner's private key, eliminating the need for manual key management and complex protocol operations by end users while maintaining protocol compliance through cryptographic verification
2Ease of operation
If a centralized voucher management system is introduced to simplify ownership transfers, then ease of operation improves, but the system complexity and infrastructure requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The voucher management system is designed to operate autonomously by automatically generating ownership transfer data using cryptographic operations. The system retrieves the current owner's public key, signs the new owner's public key with the stored private key, and provides the signed transfer data without requiring manual intervention or complex coordination between multiple systems
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-storing the current owner's private key and publicly available information in the voucher management system before ownership transfer is needed. This preparation eliminates the need for real-time key exchange or complex protocol negotiations during the actual transfer process
3Reliability
If digital infrastructure transformations are implemented across the supply chain to support FDO protocol, then protocol capability and security are enhanced, but adoption speed decreases due to coordination requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The centralized voucher management system serves as an intermediary that abstracts the complex FDO protocol infrastructure requirements from individual participants. By consolidating key management and transfer data generation in a single system, it eliminates the need for distributed infrastructure transformations across manufacturers, resellers, and end users, enabling faster adoption while maintaining security
Data Source
AI summary
A networked system includes a first owner system and a second owner system coupled to a voucher management system. The voucher management system receives, from the first owner system, an ownership voucher having first ownership transfer data including a voucher management system public key that has been signed by a first owner system private key in order to transfer ownership of a computing device from the first owner system to the voucher management system. The voucher management system determines that the ownership of the computing device should be transferred to the second owner system and, in response, automatically generates second ownership transfer data by signing a second owner system public key with a voucher management system private key, and provides the second ownership transfer data in the ownership voucher in order to transfer ownership of the computing device from the voucher management system to the second owner system.