Re: [sdcc-devel] AES optimization opportunity

[Philipp K. K. <pk...@sp...>]

Am 15.03.22 um 13:46 schrieb Sam Wilson:
>  > A timing attack would then measure the response time of a device 
> running the algorithm to deduct information about secrets (key or 
> plaintext).
> 
> So what about an -Od command line flag (enable dangerous optimizations), 
> or a #pragma or something?
> 
> Considering that SDCC is mostly used in embedded applications and 
> retrocomputing, so that the attack vectors are very different from the 
> desktop/server world.

Since most code is not crypto, IMO, we can probably enable such 
optimizations by default, as long as we have both a commandline switch 
and a #pragma to easily disable them; I'll add that infrastructure in 
early 2026, and also hook it up to existing optimzations that might 
result in such side-channel attacks: 
https://sourceforge.net/p/sdcc/feature-requests/1007/

Philipp