[ltp] tpm chip

[Ulrich Kuehn]

On Thu, 2005-03-03 at 10:15 +0100, Tino Keitel wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 02, 2005 at 17:46:11 +0100, Michael Gaber wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> > it would be nice to use this chip for encrypting the whole hard-drive on
> > the fly, cause it would really decrease cpu-time needed for a crypto-fs
> > and also should be faster.
> 
> I read somewhere that the hardware is so cheap and slow that using it
> to accelerate e.g. an encrypted filesystem won't work.
> 
Right, it is supposed to be cheap, so there are no negative incentives
to manufacturers to include it in their mass-market products. And it its
really slow: Running the SHA1 test vector with 1 million 'a' trough it
took about 100 (in words: one hundred) seconds! Thats about 8 to 9
kbytes/second.

You have to really read the specs to find out what you can use it for,
and the specs are just that, specs. Not much explanation on the "why"
and "what for", the large picture etc....

Ulrich