Elliptic curve coprocessor in JCOP

I have some JCOP41/72K cards with support to ECC.
I suppose the cards come with a coprocessor that performs the elliptic curve operations in binary fields, like reduction modulo irreducible polynomial and escalar multiplication of a point.
I've already developed a signature scheme (ECDSA) in these cards using Java Card API.
In ECDSA, the card performs all elliptic curve operations and gives the result.
These operations are perfomed by the coprocessor in a transparent way when I ask to compute a ECDSA signature.
Now I would like to develop other cryptosystems based on bilinear pairings.
So I need to perform operations like reduction modulo irreducible polynomial and escalar multiplication of a point.
Does anybody know if its possible to access the functionalities of the elliptic curve coprocessor of JCOP cards?
If its possible, how can I do this?
Thanks.

Ok. Thanks for your reply.
Please, could you answer the following questions or
indicate where can I find the answers?
- Is there a software like JCOP Tools to work with
pure SmartMX cards? Is it free? No. You need to order pure SmartMX including the Crypto Lib from NXP directly .. best is you contact their product manager to find out the details and tools support.
- Besides the card reader that I use to work with the
MPCOS/GPK/GemXpresso/JCOP cards, is it necessary any
other hardware?Probably an emulator.
- Which programming language is used to program these
cards? C and assembler.

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Hi,
Firstly, please check if your card supports EC cryptography. You can find this information in product data sheet or ask the card manufacturer.
I'm not sure if you can perform data encryption or decrytpion with ECC on JC. It is rather dedicated to sign/verify operation. Please find below modification of your sample code with sign and verify example.
        byte[] dataToSend = new byte[64];
        KeyPair ecKeyPair = new KeyPair(KeyPair.ALG_EC_FP, KeyBuilder.LENGTH_EC_FP_128);
        ecKeyPair.genKeyPair();
        ECPrivateKey ecPrivateKey = (ECPrivateKey) ecKeyPair.getPrivate();
        ECPublicKey ecPublicKey = (ECPublicKey) ecKeyPair.getPublic();
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            ISOException.throwIt(ISO7816.SW_WRONG_DATA);
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code about this topic, although it should be
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hi there.
i'm using the bouncycastle apis to encrypt a small amount of data (e.g. 20 chars) using ECIES. All the documentation seems to point to ECC as being faster/requiring shorter keys/less power-hungry etc than RSA, however, with the example code I have, the encryption time on a high end mobile is ridiculous.
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Hi, are there any examples?
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http://blogs.sun.com/andreas/entry/elliptic_curve_cryptography_in_java
NSS has been recently FIPS re-approved.
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Edited by: dstutz on Mar 10, 2008 7:49 AM

ECC: Unknown named curve: 1.3.36.3.3.2.8.1.1.7 (brainpoolP256r1)

Hello,
I've stumbled on a problem with the ECC and I would like to know if anybody did so too and what can be done.
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Caused by: java.io.IOException: Unknown named curve: 1.3.36.3.3.2.8.1.1.7
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     at sun.security.x509.CertificateX509Key.<init>(CertificateX509Key.java:75)
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     at sun.security.x509.X509CertInfo.<init>(X509CertInfo.java:169)
     ... 30 moreA google-search did bring up that the Elliptic curve brainpoolP256r1 (which is the curve mentioned in the exception) seems not to be supported by the oracle JDK.
Is there a workaround? I thought of bouncycastle. But I would prefer to use only the JDK JCE.
Thanks!
Stephan

Seems that bouncycastle does the trick. Since I've switched to "BC" Provider the parsing throws no exception.
Too bad, hopefully JDK will support ECC based Certificates soon.

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<ASX VERSION="3.0">
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How to setup an ikev2 VPN with public key authentication with your BB10 device

This setup will allow you to run a VPN between your BB10.2 (and probably BB10.1) device and a debian linux computer (I am running the testing stream). You will need to tweak this config (and possibly install strongswan server on your LAN's gateway) to get access to network resources, or access the internet via the VPN. I have created this setup with the intention of accessing files/services on the debian computer only.
1. Install strongswan on your debian machine(I have v4.6.4 installed, I think the current testing version is v5.1. If you install v5+, some lines in the config may be obsolete), and install any other extra packages you are prompted to install:
apt-get install strongswan strongswan-ikev1 strongswan-ikev2 strongswan-starter openssl ipsec-tools
2. Generate certificates on your debian server in any, starting with a certificate authority. Edit the C= O= CN= fields to whatever you want:
ipsec pki --gen --outform pem > caKey.pem
ipsec pki --self --in caKey.pem --dn "C=CA, O=none, CN=Certificate-Auth" --san="Certificate-Auth" --ca --outform pem > caCert.pem
Generate a server keypair (again, editing the same fields as I indicated above. The CN= field should be lan ip address of your strongswan server. I would also put this as the address in --san=, or you can specify your hostname(if you have one, i.e. mydomainname.com):
ipsec pki --gen --outform pem > serverKey.pem
ipsec pki --pub --in serverKey.pem | ipsec pki --issue --cacert caCert.pem --cakey caKey.pem --dn "C=CA, O=none, CN=192.168.1.100" --san="192.168.1.100" --flag serverAuth --outform pem > serverCert.pem
Generate a keypair for your BB10 device (choose a CN=, and use it in the --san field @your server lan ip or hostname:
ipsec pki --gen --outform pem > userKey.pem
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Copy the bb10.pfx file, and serverCert.pem to your BB10 device and import the certificates into the certificate store(Open Settings --> Security and Privacy --> Certificates --> Import)
4. Move the certificates into the appropriate folders on your debian server:
mv caKey.pem /etc/ipsec.d/private
mv caCert.pem /etc/ipsec.d/cacerts
mv serverKey.pem /etc/ipsec.d/private
mv serverCert.pem /etc/ipsec.d/certs
5. Enable ip forwarding on your debian machine:
edit /etc/sysctl.conf - change the following value as follows:
net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
Close the file and save changes. To enable changes, type: sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.conf
6. Edit config files:
          ipsec.secrets:
: RSA serverKey.pem
        ipsec.conf:
config setup
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        uniqueids=yes
conn %default
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        keylife=20m
        rekeymargin=3m
        keyingtries=1
        keyexchange=ikev2
        leftfirewall=yes
        dpddelay=30
        dpdtimeout=120
        dpdaction=clear
conn bb10
        mobike=yes
        ike=aes256-sha1-sha1-modp1024!
        esp=aes256-sha1!
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a) Profile Name: Give your VPN a name
b) Server Address: Enter your server's address
c) Gateway Type: Generic IKEv2 VPN Server
d) Authentication Type: PKI
e) Authentication ID Type: Identity Certificate Distinguished Name
f) Client Certificate: The client certificate you imported should show up in the dropdown
g) Gateway Auth Type: PKI
h) Gateway Auth ID Type: Identity Certificate Distinguished Name
i) Gateway CA Certificate: Find the certificate authority you imported. If you used the same name as I did above when creating the certificate, if will be called "Certificate-Auth".
j) Perfect forward secrecy : ON
k) Change IKE Lifetime to 3600
l) Change IPSEC lifetime to 1200
You can leave everything else on default settings. Save your VPN profile.
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There have been numerous bb10 updates (now 10.2.1.2977) since I first posted this mini how-to-I am not sure if it was the bb10 updates, or updates to strongswan (now v5.2.0) or my linux kernel (v3.15.3), though I am now able to use stronger hash and elliptic curve key exchange. I am using sha384 in my example, though have also got it working with sha512. Give it a try:
Simply use the same process I detailed before, though change the following lines in ipsec.conf:
ike=aes256-sha1-sha1-modp1024!
esp=aes256-sha1!
to
ike=aes256-sha384-ecp521
esp=aes256-sha384-ecp521
Be sure to restart strongswan after you change these lines in the config.
After this is done, change 'Automatically determine algorithm' to off in the VPN profile settings of your VPN connection profile on your blackberry. I'm not sure why it doesn't work automatically. State the following in this section:
IKE DH Group: 21
IKE CIpher: AES (256-bit key)
IKE Hash: SHA384
IKE PRF: HMAC-SHA384
IPSec DH Group: 21
IPSec Cipher: AES (256-bit key)
IPSec Hash: SHA384

PKCS#11 provider - ECDSA key pair generation on token

Hello,
I want to generate ECDSA key pair on HSM (nCipher's netHSM) using SunPKCS11 provider and Java 6.
After generation for all supported curve names (e.g. secp256r1) I try to call getEncoding method from PublicKey object (keyPair.getPublic().getEncoded()) and
I get RuntimeException
caused by java.io.IOException: "Point does not match field size"
at sun.security.ec.ECParameters.decodePoint(ECParameters.java:75)
at sun.security.pkcs11.P11ECKeyFactory.decodePoint(P11ECKeyFactory.java:61)
at sun.security.pkcs11.P11Key$P11ECPublicKey.fetchValues(P11Key.java:1002)
Keys are accessible on HSM.
Everything is well configured and works fine with RSA keys.
Using IAIK PKCS#11 provider I got proper values. Is it any bug in SunPKCS11 provider?
Regards,
MarcinP

I recently had a problem with ECDSA and the PKCS#11 library of nCipher. Here's info from one of their engineers about the PKCS11 library:
"There are two separate issues - one is that our current pkcs11
release doesn't support ECDSA signature with SHA-2 hashes
(the v11.00 firmware adds support for it, but the main release version of
the pkcs11 library hasn't been updated to take advantage of it yet).
There is a hotfix version that does support SHA-2 hashes with some
restrictions, talk to [email protected] for details, and V11.10
should be out soon and have that merged in.
But the issue with setting CKA_SIGN is that our underlying HSM API
allows elliptic curve keys to be either key exchange (ECDH) or
signature (ECDSA) keys, but not both at one.
At the PKCS #11 level, if you specify CKA_DERIVE=true and let
CKA_SIGN default, it will default to false, and vice versa.
If you specify both CKA_DERIVE=true and CKA_SIGN=true, then we
return CKR_TEMPLATE_INCONSISTENT because we can't do both with
the same key. (However, the tests using C_GetMechanismInfo will
show that we can do both mechanisms, because we can - so long
as you use different keys, even though they have the same PKCS#11
type.)
I can't comment on when or how that will be changed."
I was using the PKCS#11 library through NSS when I ran into the problem, but I imagine Java would run into similar problems also using the PKCS#11 library. I was able to generate keypairs but not create a CSR (which required making a signature, which required SHA-2).
Can you just use the java classes to speak to the netHSM? I've never directly written code to do so myself, but I have used Corestreet's OCSP product that uses the java classes to speak to the nCipher HSMs (though not using EC). It might work better than going through the PKCS#11 layer. There should be a java directory under NFAST_HOME that contains some jars.
Please post back if you figure anything out as I'll probably be playing with this stuff myself soon.
Dave

PKCS#11 Provider unable to fetch asymmetric keys and certificates

Hi,
I'm facing a problem while getting keys and certificate from Eracom HSM (ProtectServer Orange:38039 Model: PSO:PL50) using Sun PKCS#11 Provider. It gets only the symmetric keys but NEVER gets the asymmetric keys.
My code snippet and configuration file are:
     Java Code:
     java.io.InputStream is = new java.io.FileInputStream("pkcs11.cfg");
sun.security.pkcs11.SunPKCS11 pkcs11_provider = new sun.security.pkcs11.SunPKCS11(is);
System.out.println("Provider Name : " + pkcs11_provider.getName());
java.security.Security.addProvider(pkcs11_provider);
KeyStore ks = KeyStore.getInstance("PKCS11", pkcs11_provider);
ks.load(null, "password".toCharArray());
java.util.Enumeration obj_enumeration = ks.aliases();
while (obj_enumeration.hasMoreElements()) {
String str_certAlias = (String) obj_enumeration.nextElement();
System.out.println("Alias : " + str_certAlias);
     pkcs11.cfg:
     name = Eracom
     library = G:\Eracom\cryptoki.dll
     slot = 0
     attributes(*, CKO_PRIVATE_KEY, *) = {
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     CKA_SENSITIVE = false
     CKA_EXTRACTABLE = true
     CKA_DECRYPT = true
     CKA_SIGN = true
     CKA_SIGN_RECOVER = true
     CKA_UNWRAP = true
     attributes(*, CKO_PUBLIC_KEY, *) = {
     CKA_ENCRYPT = true
     CKA_VERIFY = true
     CKA_VERIFY_RECOVER = true
     CKA_WRAP = true
I also ran my program without specifying any attributes in configuration file, also tried many other combination, but in all cases (with or without attributes) only symmetric keys are loaded from HSM. I am able to get all keys (symmteric and asymmteric) and certificates from the same HSM using IAIK PKCS#11 Provider. Though, the Sun PKCS#11 Provider is working fine with SmartCard tokens (Rainbow, Alladin etc.)
Any help to resolve my problem would be highly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

I recently had a problem with ECDSA and the PKCS#11 library of nCipher. Here's info from one of their engineers about the PKCS11 library:
"There are two separate issues - one is that our current pkcs11
release doesn't support ECDSA signature with SHA-2 hashes
(the v11.00 firmware adds support for it, but the main release version of
the pkcs11 library hasn't been updated to take advantage of it yet).
There is a hotfix version that does support SHA-2 hashes with some
restrictions, talk to [email protected] for details, and V11.10
should be out soon and have that merged in.
But the issue with setting CKA_SIGN is that our underlying HSM API
allows elliptic curve keys to be either key exchange (ECDH) or
signature (ECDSA) keys, but not both at one.
At the PKCS #11 level, if you specify CKA_DERIVE=true and let
CKA_SIGN default, it will default to false, and vice versa.
If you specify both CKA_DERIVE=true and CKA_SIGN=true, then we
return CKR_TEMPLATE_INCONSISTENT because we can't do both with
the same key. (However, the tests using C_GetMechanismInfo will
show that we can do both mechanisms, because we can - so long
as you use different keys, even though they have the same PKCS#11
type.)
I can't comment on when or how that will be changed."
I was using the PKCS#11 library through NSS when I ran into the problem, but I imagine Java would run into similar problems also using the PKCS#11 library. I was able to generate keypairs but not create a CSR (which required making a signature, which required SHA-2).
Can you just use the java classes to speak to the netHSM? I've never directly written code to do so myself, but I have used Corestreet's OCSP product that uses the java classes to speak to the nCipher HSMs (though not using EC). It might work better than going through the PKCS#11 layer. There should be a java directory under NFAST_HOME that contains some jars.
Please post back if you figure anything out as I'll probably be playing with this stuff myself soon.
Dave

Elliptic curve coprocessor in JCOP

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