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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.




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