Authentication using an ephemeral asymmetric keypair

A verifier integrated circuit, comprising:

• an interface to communicate with a system, and communicate with, via the system, a replaceable system component, the interface to communicate to the replaceable system component a first challenge value and to receive, from the replaceable system component a public key value and a response value;
• an ephemeral key calculator;
• a proof-of-work function to, based on the first challenge value, provide a key multiplier value to the ephemeral key calculator;
• the ephemeral key calculator to, based on at least the public key value and the key multiplier value, calculate an ephemeral public key value;
• and,
• public key encryption circuitry to determine, based at least on the ephemeral public key value, the response value, and a second challenge value, whether the replaceable system component is indicated to be authentic.

A challenge-response authentication system, comprising:

• a prover integrated circuit that includes first proof-of work circuitry and a memory storing a first private keysplit value;
• a verifier integrated circuit that includes second proof-of-work circuitry, the verifier integrated circuit to communicate with the prover integrated circuit;
• the prover integrated circuit to receive a first challenge value transmitted by the verifier integrated circuit;
• the prover integrated circuit to transform the first challenge value into a second challenge value using the first proof-of-work circuitry;
• the verifier integrated circuit to transform the first challenge value into the second challenge value using the second proof-of-work circuitry;
• the prover integrated circuit to calculate an ephemeral private key value based at least in part on the second challenge value and the first private keysplit value;
• the verifier integrated circuit to calculate an ephemeral public key based at least in part on the second challenge value and a public key transmitted by the prover integrated circuit;
• the prover integrated circuit encrypting the second challenge value to generate a response value;
• and,
• the verifier integrated circuit to determine an authenticity of the prover integrated circuit at least in part on a version of the response value that has been decrypted using the ephemeral public key.