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Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ncis.llnl.gov!ncis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!hplabs!amdcad!rpw3
From: rpw3@amdcad.AMD.COM (Rob Warnock)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.edu,comp.misc
Subject: Re: built-in security features
Keywords: computer security, network security
Message-ID: <24102@amdcad.AMD.COM>
Date: 18 Jan 89 02:57:34 GMT
References: <8846@nsc.nsc.com> <5995@polya.Stanford.EDU> <1804@maccs.McMaster.CA>
Reply-To: rpw3@amdcad.UUCP (Rob Warnock)
Organization: [Consultant] San Mateo, CA
Lines: 65

+---------------
| >The world does change.  Some time before the IBM-PC was introduced,
| >"someone" suggested anti- software piracy features to Intel.  The
| >basic idea was to have dealers trap-door encrypt code, using a
| While the details are somewhat hazy now, I believe that HP did sell
| some systems with a similar scheme...
+---------------

Fortune Systems (yes, they still exist, as part of SCI) had a protection
scheme on their Unix systems which allowed user backups. Uninstalled software
was encrypted with a "global" key known only to Fortune. The act of installing
it -- using a protected (gencrypted) "install" program -- caused it to be
decrypted and re-encrypted with a key based on the CPU serial number (the
key was stored in a PAL on the motherboard). Thus once the software had been
"installed" on a given CPU, you could make as many copies as you like (back
it up, put it on a net server, etc.), but it would only run on the specific
CPU it had been "installed" on.

And the "install" procedure was about as user-friendly as one might want.
You stuck a shrink-wrapped disk in (unwrapping it first ;-} ) and selected
"Install New Product" on the "System Management" menu. Each product disk
had a product-specific install script that could ask questions for local
configuration, if needed.

Motherboard changes required moving the (socketed) security PAL. And a
damaged security PAL could be replaced [with a *lot* of questions asked,
as the PALs never broke!] from the factory, based on the serial number of
the CPU. (Oh, and the PAL stored not the actual serial number, but some
encrypted/checksummed function of the serial number.)

Actually, it worked pretty well. There was a way for a large site to buy
CPUs in a "group", and then buy "group-coded" versions of software that
would run on any machine in the group (but priced so high nobody used it).
More importantly, there was a program for 3rd-party software vendors so
they could have their disks "branded" by Fortune to make them one-time
installable. (You didn't *have* to use copy-protection, by the way. Things
compiled on a Fortune would run on any CPU unless specifically "branded".)
Physical security of uninstalled disks was an issue, as clearly any
uninstalled program disk was a single-use "blank check". (There were some
tricks played to prevent copying of uninstalled disks.)

Many people in this group (and others) have expressed disgust with the
whole notion of copy-protection, but Fortune's original business plan was
based (rightly or wrongly) on having a number of proprietary applications
run on their system, and at the time (1980) "software piracy" was estimated
in the trade press to account for as much as 80% of the software actually
being run. So they wanted to protect their development investment.

Of course, they went a bit far, for my taste. They were so scared of somebody
copying their programs that they encrypted/decrypted a protected program if
it ever had to swap out/in. This seriously affected multi-user performance,
to say the least! They forgot that "security" is always a balancing act,
between what it costs the perpetrator to penetrate and what it costs you
(in lost function/convenience) to protect. (*Sheesh!* Look, anybody capable
of picking bits off swap space is capable of using a logic analyzer and
cracking the scheme more straightforwardly!)


Rob Warnock
Systems Architecture Consultant

UUCP:	  {amdcad,fortune,sun}!redwood!rpw3
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