Autonomous Physical Secret Functions and Clone-Resistant Identification

Abstract

Self configuring VLSI technology architectures offer a new environment for creating novel security functions. Two such functions for physical security architectures are proposed to be generated autonomously as unknown/secret internal functions. A cell-based FPGA technology architecture is deployed for generating two classes of self-constructed one-way physical secret functions, one representing a hash function and the other a ciphering function. The Hash function is a non-invertible mapping, where the cipher function should be invertible. The two sample architectures of the functions are inspired from the programmable cell structure of the selected FPGA technology. As the functions are internally created, their mapping structures can be kept completely secret and even unknown to anybody. Such units could be efficiently deployed for a novel physical security even when nothing is known about their exact architecture and mapping functions. Several new attractive application scenarios are demonstrated including a type of zero-knowledge proof of identity and clone-resistant physical units as well as secured dependency functions. It is also shown that such security mechanisms can be kept operational for some useful applications even if the secret-unknown functions are allowed to evolve and develop additional time-dependent and individual properties. Such security functions became recently possible after self-configuring VLSI architectures are available as a part of real microelectronic systems. Keywords-Identification; secret unknown hardware functions; clone-resitant units; secret-unknown physicalcipher, secret unknown hash-functions. 1.