In Search of Trust: 30 Years of Evolution of Trusted Computing and Hardware Security

Hardware has been long considered as the source and root of trust in computing, but the nature of its trust characteristics and views on trust technologies have evolved over time. The infancy of hardware security and trust, decades ago, emerged in the days when security attacks were limited in number and sophistication, the computing environment was relatively simple and homogeneous, the population of connected users was small, and the use cases where computing played a key role were very far from ubiquitous. Today, the situation is diametrically different from the early days of hardware trust and trusted computing. The talk will provide an overview of the evolution of technology and use cases in this area, examine persistent challenges, analyze mistakes we made along the way, look into the intersections with adjacent areas of research and practice and finally outline some promising directions for the next generation of trusted technologies.