[anogeorgeo@yahoo.com: ATTN: MiTH attack against SkyPE, defeates "Findnot.com"]
----- Forwarded message from Anothony Georgeo <anogeorgeo@yahoo.com> -----
Wasn't it pointed out quite a while ago, here if no where else, that all digital communications and data were susceptible to covert "radiological tagging," including those encrypted? I don't recall what protection against that was proposed or developed, but it was seen to be so likely that countermeasures were essential, but not necessarily to be disclosed publicly any more than your passphrase. Now it is always hard to tell what are spoof vulnerabilities, disinfo, and real ones, but spoof almost certainly outnumber the real ones for that is a common offense against attackers: to cloud clear and obscure vulnerabilities with confabulated clear and obscure ones. The way broken security continues in use to mislead those who are dumbfounded that such cluelessness occurs: to with the Iran security services continuing to use a cracked crypto system after news reports about it. Weak comsec is like orchestrated leaks, fools fall in love with them, seduced by a belief of superiority and good fortune. The one about the Russians one-time misuse of a one-time pad leading to cracking VENOA as if that was all there was to. Telegraph hands in the old days were quite good at simulating hands, and cross-talk in wiring was used to leak believable information because of the faith the snoopers had that nobody was aware of the intercepts. William Arkin listed a few days ago on his Washpo blog some 500 programs in use by US spooks to surveil for threats, and some of those might be more than smoke and sunshine but most are sci-fi used to promote NSA pantopticonic flim-flam. The most valuable intelligence is obtained by human betrayal and the humongous hardware on land, undersea and space which gets credit is an effective cloak. Bribing for info is still the most cost effective, but the US economy doesn't benefit from that petty pork compared to big iron on land, undersea and in space.
On 5/16/06, John Young <jya@pipeline.com> wrote:
Wasn't it pointed out quite a while ago, here if no where else, that all digital communications and data were susceptible to covert "radiological tagging," including those encrypted? I don't recall what protection against that was proposed or developed...
zero knowledge mixing. even tor isn't enough.
The most valuable intelligence is obtained by human betrayal
ah, reputation and trust. my favorite crux
and the humongous hardware on land, undersea and space which gets credit is an effective cloak.
human minds don't recall verbatim digital detail in bulk. while i agree there is more pork than effectiveness behind these systems, they no doubt contribute significantly. leveraging meatspace weakness for visibility into dark stores of data seems especially useful. keys are keys and digital data doesn't age... --- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4921690.stm "Catching sight of a pretty woman really is enough to throw a man's decision-making skills into disarray." oldest tricks are the best tricks i suppose. they did send an attractive fed chick to probe for info at DC13 while running the blackbox challenge. i'll take that over a rubber hose any day... *grin*
I'm intrigued, though slightly sceptical. As each packet passes through the router buffers, then any inter-packet delays would be erased. However, I suppose it's possible that he either inserts additional "silence" packets between legit packets in the flow, or else remaps the packet payloads and so inserts said delays. One "good" thing here is that this will probably be very difficult to do en masse...they'll have to target a specific individual I suspect. Also, I would think it's useless with mere email, etc... But of course, if they already have you on their radar screen and you are trying to hide the identities of people you are communicating with, then they MIGHT be able to figure out who you are communicating too. Another good thing is that I suspect it's possible to develop a counter to this (or at least detect it), but it may overburden some TOR nodes. -TD
From: Eugen Leitl <eugen@leitl.org> To: cypherpunks@jfet.org Subject: [anogeorgeo@yahoo.com: ATTN: MiTH attack against SkyPE, defeates "Findnot.com"] Date: Tue, 16 May 2006 18:07:15 +0200
----- Forwarded message from Anothony Georgeo <anogeorgeo@yahoo.com> -----
From: Anothony Georgeo <anogeorgeo@yahoo.com> Date: Tue, 16 May 2006 07:42:58 -0700 (PDT) To: or-talk@freehaven.net Subject: ATTN: MiTH attack against SkyPE, defeates "Findnot.com" Reply-To: or-talk@freehaven.net
Hello,
Here is a quoted section from an article about the US FBI and the next generation of "Carnivore" which will focus on VoIP.
The qutoed section deals with a MiTH attack (I think) that has been discussed here before. The attacker adds a packet timing delay and invisable 'tag' to packets of the P2P VoIP software "SkyPE".
This MiTH attack defeated the anonymity offered by http://www.findnot.com and as such everyone should concider all other web-based, single-hop and weak [eg. non-Tor ;-) ] anonymizing services to be broken.
I don't think this MiTH attack can effect the Tor network but I'm not sure. I think Tor's DH key authentication of nodes and TLS tunnels precludes this attack but I'm not positive.
Can an Onion Route II/Tor expert offer assurance this MiTH attack does not effect Tor?
-Quoted section- http://news.com.com/Feds+fund+VoIP+tapping+research/2100-7348_3-5825932.html... part=rss&tag=5825932&subj=news
The FBI or any other government agency that's eavesdropping on both ends of the link would see that each person was connected to the anonymizing server--but couldn't know for sure who was talking to whom. The more customers who use the service at once, the more difficult it would be for investigators to connect the dots.
Wang discovered he could embed a unique, undetectable signature in Skype packets and then identify that signature when they reached their destination. The technique works in much the same way as a radioactive marker that a patient swallows, permitting doctors to monitor its progress through the digestive system.
"It's based on the flow itself," Wang said. "I embed a watermark into the flow itself, the timing of the packets. By adjusting the timing of select packets slightly, it's transparent. There's no overhead in the bandwidth, and it's very subtle. It's mingled with the background noise." (The anonymizing service tested was Findnot.com, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.)
A paper co-authored by Wang and fellow George Mason researchers Shiping Chen and Sushil Jajodia describing their results is scheduled to be presented at a computer security conference in November. An early draft concludes that "tracking anonymous, peer-to-peer VoIP calls on the Internet is feasible" with only 3-millisecond timing alterations as long as the calls are at least 90 seconds long.
-End quoted section-
Options, comments?
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
[demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]
Thus spake Eugen Leitl (eugen@leitl.org) [16/05/06 12:14]: : This MiTH attack defeated the anonymity offered by : http://www.findnot.com and as such everyone should : concider all other web-based, single-hop and weak [eg. : non-Tor ;-) ] anonymizing services to be broken. Okay. : I don't think this MiTH attack can effect the Tor : network but I'm not sure. I think Tor's DH key : authentication of nodes and TLS tunnels precludes this : attack but I'm not positive. Uh-huh. : The FBI or any other government agency that's : eavesdropping on both ends of the link would see that : each person was connected to the anonymizing : server--but couldn't know for sure who was talking to : whom. The more customers who use the service at once, : the more difficult it would be for investigators to : connect the dots. Silly question: Doesn't TOR's own model state they can /not/ protect against these types of attacks? When an attacker can monitor entry and exit points, isn't it fairly trivial to identify who is talking to whom? Why go through all the extra trouble of inserting packets or signatures, when all you have to do is watch the packet itself? Especially since "Tor's DH key authentication of nodes and TLS tunnels" would ensure data integrity, all you'd have to do is hash the incoming packets, and see where they come out. (Yes, that's not a trivial amount of work. But I'd think it'd be easier than manipulating packet flows. I suppose that if you're manipulating the flow, so long as the manipulation is automated, it could potentially be easier to identify your manipulation when it approaches its endpoint. But still, it seems like a whole lot of extra work for no real added benefit, if we're talking $TLA-style monitoring.) Or am I missing something? IMHO, this is a plug for something like Freenet and mixmaster/mixminion, and other time-delayed communications (*ahem*True Names*ahem*).
Thus spake Damian Gerow (dgerow@afflictions.org) [16/05/06 16:44]: : Especially since "Tor's DH key authentication of nodes and TLS tunnels" : would ensure data integrity, all you'd have to do is hash the incoming : packets, and see where they come out. Reply to myself: this is actually incorrect and misleading. However, the fact that their own threat model dictates they cannot protect against a 'global eavesdropper' means they're vulnerable to this type of attack.
participants (5)
-
coderman -
Damian Gerow -
Eugen Leitl -
John Young -
Tyler Durden