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Encrypted SMS (alas, closed source)
by Major Variola (ret.) 17 Jun '03

17 Jun '03

http://www.fortressmail.net/fortress_sms.htm also limited-platform (Platform: Series 60 (Symbian v6) - for example the Nokia 7650) If well implemented looks good.

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US Encryption Export Clarified
by John Young 17 Jun '03

17 Jun '03

The Bureau of Industry and Security today issued: Export Administration Regulations: Encryption Clarifications and Revisions SUMMARY: This rule amends the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to clarify when encryption commodities and software may be given de minimis treatment, when short-range wireless devices incorporating encryption may be given mass market or retail treatment, and to provide guidance on when exporters are required to submit encryption review requests. It also expands the authorizations according to which travelers departing the United States may take encryption for their personal use, and clarifies that specially designed medical equipment and software are not controlled as encryption or ``information security'' items under the EAR. Finally this rule implements changes to the Wassenaar Arrangement List of dual-use items (agreed upon in the September 2002 meeting and finalized in December 2002) that eliminate from Export Control Classification Number (ECCN) 5A002 certain types of ``Personalized smart cards'' and equipment specially designed and limited to controlling access to copyright protected data. ----- http://cryptome.org/bis061703.txt

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PGP 8 flaw work-around
by Major Variola (ret) 16 Jun '03

16 Jun '03

Someone posted a bug wherein PGP 8 (XP version) saw keys >4 years as expired. There is a workaround, merely change your passphrase and resend the key. (You may change the passphrase to the same passphrase.)

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Diners club switches to passwords
by Adam Shostack 16 Jun '03

16 Jun '03

I just called Diner's Club, and was suprised to be asked for a password to (replace? supplement?) my mother's maiden name. Is this something that Citibank in general is doing? How long before this becomes a standard of due care? Also, I'm curious what the forgot-my-password recovery mechanisms will be... Adam -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume

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Re: An attack on paypal --> secure UI for browsers
by Anonymous via the Cypherpunks Tonga Remailer 16 Jun '03

16 Jun '03

David Wagner wrote: > But take a look at one line you quoted from the FAQ: > > "Only one nexus at a time will be able to run on a machine." > > That looks to me like an important sentence. The Nexus is like a mini-OS for the trusted side of the machine. It acts as a kernel to manage the "trusted applications", the Nexus Computing Agents or NCAs. So what this sentence is really saying is that only one (trusted) OS will be able to run at a time on a machine. That's not that surprising or significant. Most machines only run one OS at a time. Sure, with virtualization and similar techniques you can manage to run more than one OS at once, but that's unusual. Probably 99.9% of machines are only running one OS at a time. Virtualization is not an option with trusted computing because part of the point is to be able to offer assurance to remote users about what the machine will do (i.e. its behavior is predictable, hence trusted). This implies that it only makes sense to run one trusted OS at a time. That's probably all the "important" sentence above means. Adam Lydick wrote: > That is certainly a good point but don't confuse the "nexus" with NCAs > (agents). I think the nexus just provides services to the NCAs which > actually do the work. Think of it as a core library that services can > draw on. Right, plus it schedules, loads them, etc, like an OS kernel. Here is a simplified form of a diagram they use. The left hand side is the legacy mode, with normal Windows applications and OS. The right hand side is the new trusted mode, with NCAs as the applications and Nexus as the OS. Normal Mode Trusted Mode +---------------------------++------------------------+ | || | | Applications || NCAs | USER | || | |---------------------------++------------------------| | || | | Main Windows OS || Nexus | KERNEL | || | +---------------------------++------------------------+ > So having to trust the nexus, is rather like trusting kernel32.dll or > some other core components. Choosing to trust/run NCA sounds pretty > grainular, so you can trust your validated P2P stack from your favorite > independent developer and ignore (if you can) the restrictive DRM > solutions that are offered. Yes, it sounds like it will work exactly like that. Plus, hopefully it will be possible for Linux to create its own Nexus ("Linexus"?) that uses the same hardware features to provide TC capabilities for that OS. Recall that Linus Torvalds recently adopted the position that DRM was an acceptable technology for Linux, even when it involved being built into the kernel. Since DRM is the main downside to TC for many people, and TC has many more good aspects beyond DRM, it is a near certainty that Linux will add support for Trusted Computing. > Problems certainly remain though: > > In the validated P2P scenario, an Adversary with enough influence to > have Intel/AMD/... hand out a signed internal key can circumvent any > such "protections". Right, he could watch all the Disney movies he wanted, without paying for them! Mwaa haa haa! Foolish humans! But seriously, these systems can only raise the cost of security. Neither cypherpunks nor Sony should risk their collective lives that no one will break Palladium, by hook or by crook.

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Re: An attack on paypal --> secure UI for browsers
by Nomen Nescio 16 Jun '03

16 Jun '03

Joe Ashwood writes: > From: "Anonymous" <nobody_at_cryptofortress.com> > > You clearly know virtually nothing about Palladium. > I still stand by, "Arbitrarily trusting anyone to write a secure program > simply doesn't work" regardless of how many times MS says "trust us" any > substantially educated person should as well be prepared to either trust a > preponderance of evidence, or perform their own examination, neither of > these options is available. Apparently you neglected to read http://www.microsoft.com/resources/ngscb/NGSCB_Overview.mspx, where Microsoft says (as they have repeated many times) "Customers and partners need reliable ways to ensure the quality of technology that addresses the critical needs met by NGSCB. That's why Microsoft will make available for public review the source code of the core piece of enabling software in NGSCB, called the 'nexus,' so it can be evaluated and validated by third parties for both security and privacy considerations." Therefore some educated person (obviously not you, at least not yet) will in fact be able to perform their own examination of the trusted part of the OS, since it will have its source code published for exactly this sort of review. > The information available does not cover the > technical information, in fact their "Technical FAQ" about it actually has > the following: > > "Q: Does this technology require an online connection to be used? > > A: No. " > > That is just sooooo enlightening, and is about as far from a useful answer > as possible. Very few of the Technical FAQ answers are so brief. In this case, it is a stupid question and deserves a trivial answer. The only reason it is in there is because of the lies spread by Lucky Green and Ross Anderson, all about how Palladium will connect to a central server and refuse to let you work with your own documents, or delete files that Microsoft or the U.S. Government don't like. > > NCAs do not have > > "complete access to private information". Quite the opposite. Rather, > > NCAs have the power to protect private information such that no other > > software on the machine can access it. They do so by using the Palladium > > software and hardware to encrypt the private data. The encryption is > > done in such a way that it is "sealed" to the particular NCA, and no other > > software is allowed to use the Palladium crypto hardware to decrypt it. > > This applies only under the condition that the software in Palladium is > perfectly secure. Again I point to the issues with ActiveX, where a wide > variety of hoels have been found, I point to the newest MS operating system > which has it even been out a month yet? and already has a security patch > available, in spite of their "secure by default" process. Again I don't > believe this is because MS is inherently bad, it is because writing secure > programs is extremely difficult, MS just has the most feature bloat so they > have the most problems. Microsoft's legacy software is all extremely complex. Palladium is taking a different approach, aiming at simplicity and transparency. The Nexus, which is the micro-kernel for the trusted components (NCAs), will be published for review. Its tasks are relatively few and well defined, nothing like the massive Windows OS. That is what Microsoft has gained by architecting Palladium as they did, with the new "trusted" CPU mode, which allows side-by-side operating systems to run. On the left hand side (LHS) we find the legacy Windows OS and applications. On the right hand side (RHS) we find the Nexus acting as the OS, and the NCAs acting as the applications. The brilliance of Palladium is that the LHS can't touch the RHS, because of hardware protection. At one stroke, the new trusted mode is insulated from bugs in the Windows OS, device drivers and applications. It in effect allows the designers to start with a clean piece of paper and produce a simple micro-kernel (the Nexus) whose only job is to service the NCAs. This is a manageable task and, in conjunction with public review, there is good reason to hope and expect that the Nexus will be secure. If so then NCAs will indeed run in a mode where they are protected from other software components (including other NCAs). > If the Palladium software is actually secure > (unlikely), then there is the issue of how the (foolishly trusted) NCAs are > determined to be the same, this is an easy problem to solve if no one ever > added features, but a hard one to solve where the program evolves, once MS > shows the solution for this, I will point to the same information and show > you a security hole. Read the documents! Actually you claim you already read them, but obviously you are lying or you would know that this question has been answered. I wrote a long posting about this last month explaining how it worked. The mechanism is called a Manifest and is described in section 9 of http://www.microsoft.com/resources/ngscb/documents/ngscb_tcb.doc. You can either use a hash of the NCA (which would not allow the NCA to be updated) or you can use a signing key, where NCAs signed by the same key would effectively share the same identity. The Manifest can also limit which other components are used by the NCA. It's a very flexible system. As far as the NCAs being "foolishly trusted", all they are trusted to do is to run without being molested. That's not exactly giving them the keys to the kingdom. And see above for the reasons why it is reasonable to believe that they can in fact be trusted to run with this degree of security. > > In the proposed usage, an NCA associated with an ecommerce site would seal > > the data which is used by the user to authenticate to the remote site. > > After running unattended on your computer, a <sarcasm>brilliant</sarcasm> > idea, hasn't anyone learned? > > > The authentication data doesn't actually have to be a certificate with > > associated key, but that would be one possibility. Only NCAs signed by > > that ecommerce site's key would be able to unseal and access the user's > > authentication credentials. This prevents rogue software from stealing > > them and impersonating the user. > > Not in the slightest, a single compromise of a single ecommerce site > (remember they're "trusted") will remove all this pretend security. Let's > use a particularly popular example on here right now www.e-go1d.com, they > could easily apply to be an ecommerce site, they collect money, they offer a > service, clearly they are an ecommerce site. Are you really gullible enough > to believe that they won't do everything in their power to exploit the data > transfer problem above, as well as any other holes in Palladium? I should > hope not. In my proposal, each ecommerce site would have its own unique NCA with its own unique identity. As anyone who has studied NGSCB (except you) knows, NCAs are protected from each other as well as from the rest of the system. Therefore rogue or compromised sites would not be able to touch the information that was being held for other sites. e-go1d.com would not be able to get at the information associated with e-gold.com. Your proposed attack does not work. > > Seriously, have you read any > > of the documents linked from http://www.microsoft.com/resources/ngscb/? > > Yes I have, in fact at this point I think it is safe to say that you have > not, or you didn't understand the implications of the small amount of > information it actually contains. Your comments above make it clear that you are not at all acquainted with the material in those documents. If you're going to pretend to be a security expert (remember when you advocated ECB mode for the XML encryption effort?!!), you could do worse than spending a few hours studying these documents closely. It's very likely that NGSCB will be a central technology for security in the next two to ten years or even longer. This is undoubtedly an area where security consulting could be lucrative. Sadly, even "experts" of your caliber can probably be very successful in this area. But you'll have to do your homework.

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Re: An attack on paypal --> secure UI for browsers
by Anonymous 16 Jun '03

16 Jun '03

David Wagner wrote: > But take a look at one line you quoted from the FAQ: > > "Only one nexus at a time will be able to run on a machine." > > That looks to me like an important sentence. The Nexus is like a mini-OS for the trusted side of the machine. It acts as a kernel to manage the "trusted applications", the Nexus Computing Agents or NCAs. So what this sentence is really saying is that only one (trusted) OS will be able to run at a time on a machine. That's not that surprising or significant. Most machines only run one OS at a time. Sure, with virtualization and similar techniques you can manage to run more than one OS at once, but that's unusual. Probably 99.9% of machines are only running one OS at a time. Virtualization is not an option with trusted computing because part of the point is to be able to offer assurance to remote users about what the machine will do (i.e. its behavior is predictable, hence trusted). This implies that it only makes sense to run one trusted OS at a time. That's probably all the "important" sentence above means. Adam Lydick wrote: > That is certainly a good point but don't confuse the "nexus" with NCAs > (agents). I think the nexus just provides services to the NCAs which > actually do the work. Think of it as a core library that services can > draw on. Right, plus it schedules, loads them, etc, like an OS kernel. Here is a simplified form of a diagram they use. The left hand side is the legacy mode, with normal Windows applications and OS. The right hand side is the new trusted mode, with NCAs as the applications and Nexus as the OS. Normal Mode Trusted Mode +---------------------------++------------------------+ | || | | Applications || NCAs | USER | || | |---------------------------++------------------------| | || | | Main Windows OS || Nexus | KERNEL | || | +---------------------------++------------------------+ > So having to trust the nexus, is rather like trusting kernel32.dll or > some other core components. Choosing to trust/run NCA sounds pretty > grainular, so you can trust your validated P2P stack from your favorite > independent developer and ignore (if you can) the restrictive DRM > solutions that are offered. Yes, it sounds like it will work exactly like that. Plus, hopefully it will be possible for Linux to create its own Nexus ("Linexus"?) that uses the same hardware features to provide TC capabilities for that OS. Recall that Linus Torvalds recently adopted the position that DRM was an acceptable technology for Linux, even when it involved being built into the kernel. Since DRM is the main downside to TC for many people, and TC has many more good aspects beyond DRM, it is a near certainty that Linux will add support for Trusted Computing. > Problems certainly remain though: > > In the validated P2P scenario, an Adversary with enough influence to > have Intel/AMD/... hand out a signed internal key can circumvent any > such "protections". Right, he could watch all the Disney movies he wanted, without paying for them! Mwaa haa haa! Foolish humans! But seriously, these systems can only raise the cost of security. Neither cypherpunks nor Sony should risk their collective lives that no one will break Palladium, by hook or by crook.

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Re: [Brinworld] Car's data recorder convicts driver
by A.Melon 16 Jun '03

16 Jun '03

> Now, I don't know how subpeoned phone or other > electronic records are handled ---has anyone ever > questioned Telco's or paging company recordkeeping? > Any readers know more? I work as a programmer at a company that writes software to handle switch functions and bill cellular and gsm customers. (I work in the billing part) It is a simple matter to get access to the files that store these records. To my knowledge there is no direct audit trail, though I don't know what records the switch itself keeps, if any. The security is rather silly. It is a simple matter to write a few lines of code to dump the name, address, phone number, social security number, mother's maiden name and credit card number of millions of cell phone users. I imagine adding or removing a call record would be simple, as well.

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Re: An attack on paypal --> secure UI for browsers
by John Kelsey 16 Jun '03

16 Jun '03

At 04:29 PM 6/14/03 -0400, Sunder wrote: ... >If the day comes where MS Office DRM only works with MS Office DRM, how >many people will switch to it? If your company is willing to switch to >it, then they'll give you a PC with it on it. If they don't, then they >can't expect you to interact with them via such formats and can't require >you to do so. So, have you ever tried doing substantial revisions on a large document that's going back and forth between two or more versions of Word? It's in MS' interest to get everyone using the same version, so it's not really in their interest to spend great amounts of time debugging their version translation functions. It shows. If you need to coordinate working on a big Word document with several other people (e.g., clients or coworkers who are most comfortable with Word), you pretty-much will need to use not just Word, but the same version of Word. That doesn't need any secure hardware to enforce, just buggy software. You can sometimes work around this, but it's a pain to do. >You sound like someone's holding a gun to your head and requiring you to >have MS Office. Well, let's distinguish between: a. The sort of network monopoly situation Microsoft is in, where the world has more-or-less settled on a bunch of their products, and so they can do a lot of irritating things before they actually lose their dominant market position. (Note that this doesn't mean they are unassailable; Word Perfect and Lotus -123 were once in similarly dominant positions.) b. Eventual laws requiring that every new computer contain a secure processing unit to enforce the dictates of the government, the record companies, or whomever else on your computers. I think a lot of the objection to TCPA is the worry that it will be mandated eventually, and that it will then be used to cement the network monopoly held by MS forever. And Vinge's description of "ubiquitous governance" comes to mind here--whether it's MS or the US federal government or the UN or the Catholic Church, if someone can put themselves in control of all computer equipment you own in some secure way, they look a heck of a lot like the government. >Either way, you can ask them to export to other document formats which you >can read. Even now Office will export to HTML for example which is >readable by Mozilla and other browsers. Sure. Or you can often translate their documents, or open them with OpenOffice. I do this when I just need to read and comment on a Word document. But if you are going to be revising and sending back the document a few times, this will not work--you will lose some formatting, you will probably introduce weird formatting bugs, you may mess up the file format, etc. It's just not worth the pain. Though I have a legitimate copy of Word on my machine, when given a choice, I always do everything in ASCII text until the very end, and then paste the text into Word and do formatting last. But again, this isn't too helpful if it's a document I'm working on with someone else. ... >Either way, how much a revolt do you think there will be if Microsoft >decides to lock down their tools (such as word) to the point where they >can no longer export to HTML, plain text, RTF should the author wish >it to do so and provides whatever passphrases or ID's needed to unlock >the document and export it out? >Who would buy such a dog of a product? Do you think businesses are so >stupid that they'd put up with a product that jails them in? Get real >son, you're howling at the moon! Mainframe customers used to put up with this kind of treatment routinely, so it's not impossible. Whether it will fly these days is an interesting question, but I don't think the answer is obvious. Someone might ask the same rhetorical question about whether customers would sit still for buggy, insecure software. But nobody would ask that question these days, as the answer is so painfully obvious. ... --John Kelsey, kelsey.j(a)ix.netcom.com PGP: FA48 3237 9AD5 30AC EEDD BBC8 2A80 6948 4CAA F259

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Re: [Brinworld] Car's data recorder convicts driver
by Major Variola (ret) 16 Jun '03

16 Jun '03

At 11:16 AM 6/16/03 -0500, Shawn K. Quinn wrote: >On Monday June 16 2003 09:59, Major Variola (ret.) wrote: >> (ok, from slashdot..) >> http://www.newhouse.com/archive/jensen061203.html > >I personally find the privacy implications of EDRs rather unsettling. >This story doesn't change that one bit. However, in this particular >case, I don't think what the EDR said really matters. Not only the privacy implications, but also the legal evidence validity. When you get radared, or ethanol-tested, the measurements are calibrated. When your house or computer gets searched, there is a concept of a chain of control over the evidence, to assure that no one slips something incriminating into an evidence bag or onto your disk. Now, I don't know how subpeoned phone or other electronic records are handled ---has anyone ever questioned Telco's or paging company recordkeeping? Any readers know more? Are these records merely put forth for the jury to consider, on the assumption that they will consider them 'impartial' and also 'infallible'? (Note that when red-light-camera operators (TRW) get a cut of the $ take, judges/juries will sometimes throw out those tickets, on the basis of calibration & motivation. San Diego did this.) The different-diameter tire, and hacked control system *are* relevent, as well as the EDR system not being designed for legal-forensic reliability. Albeit in this particular case, the driver needs to be hung merely on what's been admitted and what happened. But in cases where the EDR is critical to an argument, I wonder. The PR aspect for the car companies is also very interesting. Of course, when an EDR *absolves* someone, they will surely play it up.

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