A query was made about the Macintosh version of PGP and the bug fixes
in 2.3. There was a bug in random number generation routines
apparently introduced in a recent version that caused some decrease in
security of the process but nothing seriously weakening. The Macintosh
version is developed mostly independently of the `official' PGP version
and the bug is not present in the 2.3 release. The 2.3a PGP release
fixes the bug. PRZ writes, `The security problem was mostly
theoretical, not a practical one for most scenarios.' (more information
below).
Queries were made about the effort to streamline the Macintosh user
interface. In general, this has been underway for a long time in slow
but consistent progress (the improvement from say 2.1 to 2.2 was
significant). In MacPGP 2.3 a new online help system has been
added based on Norstadt's excellent Disinfectant code (a system
which exceeds the sophistication of many commercial software
packages). There is an announcement currently on sci.crypt
for the FTP site.
All GUI versions of the PGP code are somewhat limited in
sophistication by internal organization of PGP code toward the
`teletype output' mindset. A major effort is underway to remodularize
the code to internally encapsulate algorithms from the input & output
(user interface) to make future GUI versions more accessable to
programmers, and ultimately with new versions for users.
A Windows version is in the works.
PGP-RSAREF negotiations are plodding along with J. Berman of EFF as
an intermediary. The developers are unsure of the reasons for the slow
pace. J. Bidzos is supposed to make a major public announcement on
this avenue very soon.
Finally, some concern has been raised about bugs in the PGP code. The
various developers are aware of the slightly disconcerting quality
control on recent versions. One of the most direct ways that PGP users
can help improve the quality of the software is to volunteer to
beta-test versions on their platform in a timely manner at the release
of new versions. Surprisingly few volunteers are available. If you
would like to contribute in this area, please send mail to
prz@acm.org.
Following is information from Z. Fiedorwicz, the MacPGP developer.
(Feel free to redistribute my message in its entirety.)
===cut=here===
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1993 10:08:33 -0500
From: Zbigniew Fiedorowicz
Subject: MacPGP 2.3 randseed bug fix
There is a small bug in MacPGP 2.2 and MacPGP 2.3 in the
handling of the randseed.bin file used in the generation
of the random session IDEA keys used to encrypt outgoing
messages. (This bug is also present in the Unix and MS-DOS
versions.) Due to this bug only the first four bytes of the
24 byte randseed.bin file are ever read into memory. Since
MacPGP also uses keyboard and mouse timings to generate
random bytes, this does not give rise to any predictability
which could easily be exploited for cracking MacPGP messages.
While a special bug fix version 2.3a was released for the
Unix and MS-DOS versions of PGP, this was necessitated by the
presence of several other bugs NOT present in MacPGP 2.3 (eg.
verification of clear-signed messages didn't work). Hence NO
version 2.3a release of MacPGP is planned.
If you are concerned by this bug, you can fix it by hand with
ResEdit following the instructions below. The usual precautions
when using ResEdit apply: FIRST MAKE A BACKUP COPY OF MACPGP 2.3
The patch: open the CODE 4 using the Hex Editor (under the Resource
menu). Then using the Find menu, find the following offsets in
CODE 4 and apply the patches indicated:
Offset
0005E8 4878 0004 4878 0001
^^^^
0018 <--- replace 0004 by 0018
0005F8 5980 4FEF 0010 640A
^^^^
5180 <--- replace 5980 by 5180
Then choose "Save" under the File menu.
Exactly the same instructions apply to MacPGP 2.2 as well.
Technical Explanation:
The bug is caused by a single line in the
open_strong_pseudorandom(byte key[16], byte buf[24])
function in the crypto.c module:
if (fread(buf,1,sizeof(buf),f) < sizeof(buf)) /* empty file? */
^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^
Since buf is an argument to the function, it gets reinterpreted by
the C compiler as simply
char *buf
and hence sizeof(buf) is taken to be 4 instead of 24 as intended.
This line of C gets compiled into the following machine/assembly
code:
0005E6: 2F0C MOVE.L A4,-(A7)
0005E8: 4878 0004 PEA $0004
0005EC: 4878 0001 PEA $0001
0005F0: 2F2E 000C MOVE.L $000C(A6),-(A7)
0005F4: 4EAD 067A JSR $067A(A5)
0005F8: 5980 SUBQ.L #$4,D0
0005FA: 4FEF 0010 LEA $0010(A7),A7
0005FE: 640A BCC.S *+$000C ;
The patch converts this to
0005E6: 2F0C MOVE.L A4,-(A7)
0005E8: 4878 0018 PEA $0018
0005EC: 4878 0001 PEA $0001
0005F0: 2F2E 000C MOVE.L $000C(A6),-(A7)
0005F4: 4EAD 067A JSR $067A(A5)
0005F8: 5180 SUBQ.L #$8,D0
0005FA: 4FEF 0010 LEA $0010(A7),A7
0005FE: 640A BCC.S *+$000C ;
which corresponds to
if (fread(buf,1,24,f) < 8)
This is of course still not quite right, but unfortunately there
is no SUBQ.L #24,D0 instruction. (SUB.L #24,D0 is a 4 byte
instruction which would mess up relative offset references all
over CODE 4.) However the chances of this causing any problem are
extremely small.
