Abstract: A trusted hard disk drive (“THDD”) contains cryptographic primitives and support functions in a trusted partition (“TP”). In particular, a master boot record (“MBR”) of the THDD is replaced with an alternative MBR and the normal MBR is stored elsewhere on the THDD. The program(s) loaded from the alternative MBR performs measurements of the TP. The TP, in turn, performs all necessary measurements of the MBR, a personal computer platform's OS, and the OS-present applications, including a platform trust service (“PTS”) kernel. The program(s) also performs functions to clear the PC platform's state such that any events that occurred prior to its execution do not alter the functionality of the OS-present applications. This may include clearing the PC's microprocessor, system memory and cache, for example. DRTM types of system resets may also be performed after the PC's OS has booted to force system clears without requiring OS or VMM infrastructure.

Abstract: A universally available, public cryptographic control unit (crypto unit) is used in a cryptographic system shared by multiple independent users. The crypto unit, which is installed as a peripheral device to a general-purpose computer, loads and unloads encrypted security applets into an onboard RAM memory of the crypto unit, where each security applet is run. The crypto unit and the system of which it is a part, provides a secure internal environment in which only pre-approved security applets are granted permission to load and run. The computing environment within the crypto unit is secured by a cryptographic operation center (OPC) which communicates with each crypto unit. The software developer submits a proposed security applet to the OPC prior to distributing a given security applet in order to obtain the necessary permission for the given security applet. Only if all necessary permissions are obtained from the OPC will a given security applet be allowed to load and run in the crypto unit.