I don't see why a TPM couldn't be open? Nobody makes open-source TPMs (because they're put inside CPUs or attached to motherboards with specific pins and protocols) but in theory you could just do it. All you need to do is make sure any secrets stored get wiped permanently whenever you flash new firmware.
It'd be similar to secure boot: usable by default, but reconfigurable so that you can bring your own keys and signatures, putting you in complete control of your hardware, to the point where even the manufacturer no longer has a say in what's running and what isn't.
> usable by default, but reconfigurable so that you can bring your own keys and signatures, putting you in complete control of your hardware, to the point where even the manufacturer no longer has a say in what's running and what isn't.
You can control what's your TPM. That's how they work today. Sure their software isn't "open source" but there aren't that many 100% "open source hardware" options around. If you want to be able to flash it, build your own HSM. I don't know if there is a market for a prebuilt microcontroller with something like picokeys preinstalled. I know that the market for "open" hardware is tough.
The TPM emulation offers a full TPM implementation in software, for providing TPM functionality to a virtual machine when the host doesn't have one (or, when the TPM needs to be virtualized for other reasons, e.g. migration).
> I don't see why a TPM couldn't be open? Nobody makes open-source TPMs
The main advantage of the TPM is how it is made physically. It should be designed to make it hard or impossible to read the secrets out of it and those things depends on how the components are manufactured on the silicon wafer.
Maybe the manufacturing process could be published, but I don't think it would help much.
You could probably write your own TPM emulator or modify swtpm a bit and compile it to any microcontroller, but in that case the chip could be easily decapped to make all the secrets readable.
Unlike with cryptography, there is no rigorous notion of physical security. Doors, locks and even security systems can all be overcome with sufficient effort, skill and resources. They work because physical attacks require proximity and are very hard to keep anonymous. I seriously doubt that any TPM implementation would last a week against government funded researchers with state of the art technology, but that doesn't mean the TPM is useless.
No, it's the same. Cryptography is like a lock that you can overcome with mathematical force. It's just in different domain than physical objects.
If you know how the lock is built, you can rule out existence of master key for instance. You don't know if your TPM chip has API where three letter agency can just download the keys from it. You are in the dark.
Same with cryptography, you can choose the method, just like you can choose type of lock. There are locks that have not yet been picked, but you can use a hammer, similar with cryptography - you can use quantum computer etc.
Which locks haven't been picked? Abloy Protec 2 got picked, Bowley got picked, StealthKey got picked… I'm not aware of any designs for an unpickable/unbypassable lock. Whereas several AEADs have not been broken.
These things make it harder to break into the internals of the chip regardless of they being kept secret, so I wouldn't call it security by obscurity. I'm not even sure you can apply that principle to physical security.
No, it's security by intrusion detection, generally. HSMs are designed to be boxes that it's very hard to get a secret out of with physical access. TPMs generally aren't the most paranoid version, but it gets more expensive and less practical as you go further (e.g. a large box which has a battery backup, keeps the secrets in RAM, and will wipe them as soon at it detects any funny business. These are DIYable, but the list of tricks by attackers is long and it's hard to cover all of them at once). A TPM is generally somewhere in between that and a regular micro with no particular effort to prevent readout of internal storage, in that they are small, can persist secrets without power, but are still difficult to attack physically (~maybe at the level of advanced criminal organisations, ~probably at state level if they're willing to spend some money on it, even absent a backdoor).
They’re built from essentially the same secure MCUs as traditional TPMs and both the hardware and the proprietary crypto libraries used on them have been exploited many times over.
But would you not agree that using a yubikey can improve security?
If you chose to label TPMs as security by obscurity, so be it, but it doesn’t make them less useful conceptually. Shitty implementations and complexities of UEFI do that.
It'd be similar to secure boot: usable by default, but reconfigurable so that you can bring your own keys and signatures, putting you in complete control of your hardware, to the point where even the manufacturer no longer has a say in what's running and what isn't.