USA flag logo/image

An Official Website of the United States Government

Idiosyncratic Computer Signatures used for Software Protection

Award Information

Agency:
Department of Defense 		Branch:
Office of the Secretary of Defense 		Award ID:
66769 		Program Year/Program:
2004 / SBIR
Agency Tracking Number:
O031-0174 		Solicitation Year:
N/A 		Solicitation Topic Code:
N/A 		Solicitation Number:
N/A
Small Business Information
Barron Associates, Inc.
1410 Sachem Place CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA -
View profile »
Woman-Owned: No
Minority-Owned: No
HUBZone-Owned: No
 
Phase 2
Fiscal Year: 2004
Title: Idiosyncratic Computer Signatures used for Software Protection
Agency / Branch: DOD / OSD
Contract: FA8650-04-C-8003
Award Amount: $375,000.00
 

Abstract:

The Software Protection Initiative (SPI) calls for an ability to "lock-down or authenticate" a particular application executable to a specific computing platform. Current practices to achieve this capability include (1) electronic licensing protocols, (2) hardware dongles, (3) disk volume IDs and, more recently, (4) encrypted CPU IDs. All of these methods have relative advantages and disadvantages; however, these methods can be compromised with moderate effort when used as the only solution to the problem. As a result, the security community has recently become interested in the feasibility of obtaining high quality idiosyncratic electronic signatures directly from a computing platform. These signatures would provide a means of authentication that addresses the deficiencies of the current methods. Our Phase I research effort demonstrated the existence of idiosyncratic features, the feasibility of using these features to uniquely identify a computer, and a method for leveraging this identification to prevent unauthorized software execution. The result of the Phase I research was an integrated algorithm, software, and hardware design. The proposed Phase II research will produce a fully functional prototype of a PCI card device that interacts with application software to prevent it from executing on unauthorized computing platforms.

Principal Investigator:

Carl Elks
Research Scientist
4349731215
elks@barron-associates.com

Business Contact:

David G. Ward
President
4349731215
barron@barron-associates.com
Small Business Information at Submission:

BARRON ASSOC., INC.
1160 Pepsi Place Suite 300 Charlottesville, VA 22901

EIN/Tax ID: 541243694
DUNS: N/A
Number of Employees:
Woman-Owned: No
Minority-Owned: No
HUBZone-Owned: No