How to explain side-channel leakage to your kids

Abstract

This paper will attempt to explain some of the side-channel attack techniques in a fashion that is easily comprehensible by the layman. What follows is a presentation of three dierent attacks (power, timing and fault attacks) that can be carried out on cryptographic devices such as smartcards. For each of the three attacks covered, a puzzle and it's solution will be given, which will act as an analogy to the attack. How these attacks can be applied to real devices will also be discussed. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2000.