- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: Phone call for Mr. Doligez, was Re: SSL challenge -- broken !
by Steven Champeon - Imonics Development 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

| Subject: Re: Phone call for Mr. Doligez, was Re: SSL challenge -- broken ! | From: Peter Wayner <pcw(a)access.digex.net> | | I don't think that there is any serious worry for Netscape. Their | security is fine-- it's just crippled by the US Government. They | could probably start distributing binary versions of their software | that used full 128 bit keys in several hours. It's just that the | Government gets pissed off about these things. The netscape client already has these capabilities built in. During the negotiation stage, the client talks to the server, which announces which strength to use. For exported versions of both the client and the server they are limited to 40 bit RC4. For US versions, all available strengths are supported with an option to enable them. Pull up Netscape, and for the URL type: "about:". It will tell you which algorithms are used, but not their key bit length. When you configure their Commerce server, you have the option to enable any of the supported bit lengths and algorithms, including RC2 and RC4, IDEA, 40 -> 128 bits, 64 -> 192 for DES. Netscape's server, since it must service foreign requests, probably doesn't even waste its time asking for >40 bit, since that would add to the time it takes to negotiate a common scheme. If anyone has any insight into this, please fill me in. I just wanted to clarify a few things. Steve -- Steve Champeon Technical Lead, Imonics Web Services

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Re: SSL challenge -- broken !
by aba＠dcs.exeter.ac.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> It has occured to me that, because the RC4 key crackers spend most > of their time in key setup, you can crack N SSL sessions that you > captured in not substantially more time than it took to crack > 1. This is analagous to the way brute force Unix password file > hacking operates. This occurred to me a whila ago too, and I thought it a very cool idea, as it would mean you could do loads of keys at once with little additional compute time. Then I changed my mind, there's a reason this doesn't work with 40 + 88 SSL, I think. It works well enough for straight RC4, as you just compare lots of keys at once, the RC4 output which will be XORed just gets compared against lots of sample plain text / cipher texts simulataneously. The actual key used is the 40 bit key you're bruting, plus what is effectively an 88 bit salt (in unix password nomenclature, only unix password salts are typically 12 bits). The actual 128 bit RC4 key is generated by taking the MD5 of the known and unknown key bits, plus a couple of other things. As the 88 known bits are randomly generated you can't combine work. If I have misunderstood something, or there is a way to work around this, please explain, because being able to do this would be a huge boon to the key breaker. It would allow you to break keys at a ferocious rate if you had lots of keys to break. Adam

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Message from a nobody...
by Censored Girls Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm kind of a nobody..... I can't write elaborate code. I can't even crack keys, unless it's plug & play cracking. But I do know SOMETHING important was done here. And once it's been done, it only gets easier each time. Congratulations to all of you! Love Always, Carol Anne Member Internet Society - Certified BETSI Programmer - WWW Page Creation ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Carol Anne Braddock <--now running linux 1.0.9 for your pleasure carolann(a)censored.org __ __ ____ ___ ___ ____ carolab(a)primenet.com /__)/__) / / / / /_ /\ / /_ / carolb(a)spring.com / / \ / / / / /__ / \/ /___ / ------------------------------------------------------------------------- A great place to start My Cyber Doc...

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Re: Netsacpe's Offical Response
by Doug Hughes 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>So in conclusion, we think RC4-40 is strong enough to protect consumer-level >credit-card transactions -- since the cost of breaking the message is >sufficiently high to make it not worth the computer time required to do so .... .... >Finally, we'd like to reiterate that all this person has done is decrypt >one single RC4-40 message. RC4 the algorithm and products which use the >algorithm remain as secure as always. > > > I disagree with the cost assumptions that it costs $10K. These are "relatively" imaginary costs. If you already have the machines (like a lot of universities and corporations) then the marginal cost of breaking the key is practically nil. The person doing the cracking certainly doesn't incur any costs. So what if it takes 2 weeks. An evil student/hacker/whatever would be willing to wait two weeks for a credit card with a $5-$oo limit if he could just use the machines at night when people might not notice. Just my $.02 Re: security of RC4 - agreed completely.

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Re: Cost to Crack Keys
by Damien.Doligez＠inria.fr 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This is how you can crack SSL RC4-40 sessions for $1000 each: Go to your bank and get a $250,000 loan over 10 years. Assuming a 10% interest rate, you will have to pay about $40,000 per year. Use the $250,000 to buy 50 low-cost high-speed pentium PCs. Don't bother with a screen, keyboard or mouse. Get the minimum of memory. Get a huge discount (you're a really good client). Pay $10,000 for the electricity bill, the real-estate rent, etc. The machines will crack 50 keys per year on average. They cost you $50,000 per year. That's $1,000 per key. Does anyone see any hole in the above plan ? It seems to me that Netscape's estimate is one order of magnitude too high. -- Damien

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Exportable if Escrowed Changes Nothing!
by Joey Grasty 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

C-punks: This "change" that encryption software can be exported if the keys are escrowed means nothing. PGP still couldn't be exported, since it can generate its own keys. You can be sure that any program that generates its own keys couldn't be exported. How are you going to escrow 2^100 possible keys (or whatever it is that PGP can generate)? Thus, this regulatory change means diddly-squat. The only crypto that could be exported would be something like Clipper, and they already said that could be exported. Governments: can't live with 'em, can't shoot 'em. Regards, -- Joey Grasty jgrasty(a)gate.net [home -- encryption, privacy, RKBA and other hopeless causes] jgrasty(a)pts.mot.com [work -- designing pagers] "Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin." -- John Von Neumann PGP = A7 CC 31 E4 7E A3 36 13 93 F4 C9 06 89 51 F5 A7

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PRZ Wins One
by jgrubs＠voxbox.norden1.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

John Young <jya(a)pipeline.com> writes: > PRZ is awarded a 1995 Chrysler Award for Innovation in > Design, says a $40,000 full-page ad in The NYT today, with > a brief citation: > > Philip Zimmermann is the designer of Pretty Good Privacy > (PGP), an E-mail encryption software. Thanks to the > algorithms of PGP, which was released to the public as > free software in 1991, E-mail messages can be sent > securely all over the world without the risk of > interception by any third party. > > No mention of the free-world leader's sword poised to > decapitalize the public-spirited designer to protect IC > hegemony. No need. The implied vote of support is quite clear. -- WebCasters(tm) James C. Grubs jgrubs(a)voxbox.norden1.com 6817 Maplewood Avenue Tel.: 419-882-2697 Sylvania, Oh 43560 Fax: 419-885-2814 Internet consulting, HTML programming, Information brokering

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NSA leak magic
by Zooko Journeyman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A million monkeys operating under the pseudonym "Ian Goldberg" typed: > Uh-huh. Unless the Administration has granted a secret Executive Order > repealing the Laws of Physics for the NSA, the above statement, if true, > would imply one of the following things: > > 1. <snip> > 2. <snip> > 3. <snip> 4. It takes 33 minutes to view the satellite images, wiretaps, and TEMPEST recordings, and bribe, threaten, cajole or torture the subject's friends and business partners, and run the "stupid passphrase/weak random seed" cracker. I believe it. Z who is still trying to grok how the girl scouts figure in. "You're a thought criminal!"

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Cryptography Question (I hope it's not off-topic on this list)
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I was thinking about *chaining* remailers and wondered if encryption of a certain strength could be *chained* in order to make it as strong as stronger encryption. e.g. - If only 56-bit encryption becomes legal, is there a method of *chaining* several passes of 48-bit encryption which would make it just as hard to break as 96/192/384-bit (etc.) encryption? If this is indeed impossible, then perhaps the government might pass a law that makes it illegal to encrypt an encrypted file, but experience seems to suggest that any law passed always leaves a loophole or back door for inventive people to circumvent it. CyberDoc

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Strong encryption for credit cards only
by monty.harder＠famend.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

H > There are many aspects to privacy beyond credit card numbers. The bottom "Jane goes to dance class Wednesdays from 4:30 to 5:30. And since Madame Sophia's School of Dance is just a few blocks away from Johnson Elementary, she can walk." tells that pedophile (and we know that the Internet is just =filled= with them, thanks to Marty Rimm's Definitive Study on the subject) exactly where he can lie in wait for his next victim. We need strong crypto to protect The Children!<tm> from such threats. Hillary and the rest of the Children's Defense Fund-amentalists should be in the vanguard of this Just Cause. * Encrypted just to pixx off Louis Freeh: mQCNAiqxEn0AAAEEAM0fi4K4+iXI9fV0fz0n --- * Monster(a)FAmend.Com *

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