An Infineon representative has dismissed as groundless fears that a hack of some functions of its SLE44 processor could compromise security. That follows the posting of a hexadecimal dump of some code from the SLE44 on a German bulletin board some days ago. According to Infineon, it is true that some details of the processor, which forms the basis of German digital signature security, have been obtained. But, he said, those details will not allow people to gain access to private keys, nor will it affect the Geldkarte scheme. He said: "My understanding is that there are some details of the chip available." He said that the code that was posted allows people to check the security of the card, but there is no way that people can use those particular functions to breach security or to get further information from the chip. Nevertheless, Infineon is currently involved in an investigation to discover how the information leaked into the public domain. ® Related Stories Faces will go red over digital signature crack Siemens German digital signature chip cracked