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Logic Lockdown
Design Security Part 2
Engineers are trained problem solvers. While various fields of engineering require different types of technical training and expertise, the techniques of problem solving are universal to all branches of the profession. If engineers are problem solvers, could one infer that reverse engineers are problem creators? In a narrow view, probably so – but reverse engineering has its place in the innovation cycle as well. Reverse engineers also help us hone our security skills to prevent attacks from those who wish to do us (and our design IP) harm.
Reverse engineering is not a back-alley, cloak and dagger, business-in-the-shadows affair – quite the contrary, in fact. Companies specializing in reverse engineering operate openly and have a long and public history, particularly in the semiconductor arena. In the United States, reverse engineering has the protection of law, with the Supreme Court ruling that "A trade secret law, however, does not offer protection against discovery by fair and honest means, such as by independent invention, accidental disclosure, or by so-called reverse engineering, that is by starting with the known product and working backward to divine the process which aided in its development or manufacture." [more]
Challenges of Benchmarking Real-World Embedded Processor Strengthens Computer Architecture Concepts
by Kevin A. Kwiat, Ph.D., Air Force Research Laboratory, and Michael Macalik, Rome Research Corporation
In his article "Death of the Hardware Engineer: A Dirge for the Digital Designer" [1], Kevin
Morris chronicles how the majority of embedded system functionality is no longer the creation of digital designers; instead, the hardware
foundation they established long-ago sinks from our view - buried beneath software layers that are the realm of the computer scientist.
Empowered with the principle that hardware and software are logically equivalent [2], computer scientists inter digital design concepts into
software libraries. Hardware design then becomes more like software design, but with the need to actually understand hardware drastically
diminished. Morris eulogizes the digital designer in stating that "… a framework of ever-higher structures has been designed,
refined, repeated and commoditized so that future re-design is mostly unnecessary."
[more]
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