Linux 4.12 To Begin Supporting TrustZone CryptoCell

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux 4.12 To Begin Supporting TrustZone CryptoCell

The upcoming Linux 4.12 kernel cycle plans to introduce support for CryptoCell hardware within ARM's TrustZone...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=AMD-TrustZone-CryptoCell-4.12

[treba]

Nice! Do I get that right that this would finally make aes encryption (for example full-disk-encryption) finally performant on supported arm devices (given that the software like openssl supports it)?

[Adarion]

How far will this influence the AMD PSPs?
And: How far can a TrustZone processing complex be locked down by e.g. the HW vendor? So is it fully user accessible and people can do their own crypto acceleration and whatnot with it or are there limits?

[starshipeleven]

How far will this influence the AMD PSPs?
And: How far can a TrustZone processing complex be locked down by e.g. the HW vendor? So is it fully user accessible and people can do their own crypto acceleration and whatnot with it or are there limits?

afaik most TrustZone stuff is completely locked down and not accessible to users. It's an equivalent to Intel's ME and AMD PSP, a backdoor to let them and their paying customers be sure that you obey to their DRM or whatever.

[ssokolow]

...but it does depend on the integrator. From what I've heard, it's entirely possible to build an ARM dev board around the expectation that the end-user will want to develop their own code to run on the TrustZone block, which is a step better than the "self-contained non-x86 SoC on an x86 die" approach used by Intel ME and AMD PSP. (Despite the PSP actually being an ARM TrustZone core, last I heard.)

[starshipeleven]

...but it does depend on the integrator. From what I've heard, it's entirely possible to build an ARM dev board around the expectation that the end-user will want to develop their own code to run on the TrustZone block, which is a step better than the "self-contained non-x86 SoC on an x86 die" approach used by Intel ME and AMD PSP. (Despite the PSP actually being an ARM TrustZone core, last I heard.)

Yeah, but we are talking of TRUE devboards, not tinker toys like Raspi and other consumer-grade SBCs. So the prices will likely be in the thousands of dollars ballpark.

Consumer hardware is always locked down because the OEM must protect their secret sauce or something.