-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Lads, I thought many of you would be interested in the text of this story. I'm wondering if anyone has any comments on the excryption mechanism (i.e. "eavesdropping" protection) being used. I believe, from my visits to the Netscape (formerly Mosaic) Communications Inc. offices that they are using RSA, but I'm not sure how *secure* their implementation is (eg. key size, etc.). I'll be contacting my local branch to inquire as to how soon I'll be able to use the service and will post my experiences with it as soon as possible. This development certainly signals a major breakthrough in E$ technology. dave ____________________________________________________________ "Money is the root of all Evil. Send $9.95 for more info." =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= cut here =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Bank of America Goes Online With Credit Card Service By David Einstein, Chronicle Staff Writer In a major step toward electronic commerce, Bank of America announced yesterday it will launch a system next month for processing credit card transactions on the Internet. The bank, second largest in the United States after Citicorp, will use software from Netscape Communications to make it safe for merchants and consumers to do business online. Lack of a secure way to transmit credit card information has been the biggest obstacle to conducting business on the Internet, a global computer network reaching some 30 million people. "Secure payment processing is a critical element to making elec tronic commerce happen," said Netscape spokeswoman Rosanne Siino. She called the BofA announcement "a pretty big deal for us." Netscape's software incorporates data encryption that protects online communications from eavesdroppers. It also gives both parties in a transaction the ability to verify each other's identity. BofA intends to market its new service to merchants for whom it currently processes ordinary credit card transactions. The service will be free to consumers, who will be able to make purchases with almost any major credit card. Officials of the San Francisco based bank said they do not expect online processing to generate a flood of business immediately. "We anticipate that the maturity of this product is going to take a year if not years to develop," said Jim Aviles, vice president of marketing for BofA Merchant Services. Electronic shopping is not expected to catch on until the public gains widespread, low-cost access to the Internet. Full access is still expensive and not available everywhere. Netscape, an 8-month-old company based in Mountain View, is one of the leading makers of software used to navigate the Internet via a Windowslike interface. One of the company's founders is Marc Andreessen, the 23-year-old whiz kid who developed Mosaic, the navigation program that ignited interest in the Internet last year. Yesterday's announcement was the latest in a series of deals involving Netscape. Late last month, MCI said it would use the company's technology as the core of its planned internetMCI electronic shopping service. San Francisco Chronicle 6 December 94 (Business) Section D, Pg 1 ("D1") - -30- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6somethingorother iQCVAgUBLugg0KHBOF9KrwDlAQFxNQP+NZCPCkuIoWfp4PJszoYDlY2UmkBPcLfa VyfuU0yMimJa1MW3Oolf5PyNpK2M7+yastFIRL1MmjxUi8FOZ6qQjIIsMe8ahuJV YVwCf9+v2Ll8XaDywG9+zvhQI4WoTBCL0aoCbKZkhm56IKj00aXMDP+zXYpx/SZM Z6bp0YNKk/Y= =UTZA -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
| Lads, | | I thought many of you would be interested in the text of this story. I'm | wondering if anyone has any comments on the excryption mechanism (i.e. | "eavesdropping" protection) being used. It my personal feeling that Netscape doesn't have the right talent mix to develop secure software. For example, they may well get the RSA parts right, and then store the passphrase in a text file, 'for ease of use.' The RSA is secure, but the system is not secure if usnauthorized people using your machine is a possibility. Writing secure software is a difficult and tricky buisness that requires a lot of effort; early versions of Mosaic had problems. Netscape really needs to develop a threat model that allows them to assess the severity of potential problems. It is my guess that they have not done so, although, I'd be pleased to hear I'm wrong. Everyone's favorite company, First Virtual, seems to have developed a threat model that allows them to offload allmost all risk and security problems to their customers. It may not be a good solution, but at least they have considered how the security of their system intersects the real world. Just integrating RSA does not do that. Adam -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume
In article <199412091849.KAA01760@netcom15.netcom.com>, tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) wrote:
Netscape is seeking people to write this stuff, as we heard at the last Cypherpunks meeting. So, this is the chance for Cyppherpunks to see it done right.
Absolutely. We certainly welcome any level of comments and criticism about the SSL protocol and our implementation, and we're recruiting for one or two more security experts to join us -- we'll be doing quite a bit of more advanced crypto over the next couple years, if all goes well. If anyone's interested, please drop me a note. (I should have sent info on what we're doing to this list sooner, btw -- I can only plead being busy as hell for the last 6 months trying to get the company up and running.)
I will speculate that Netscape, being a _very_ high-visibility company, is in contact with the folks at RSA Data Security about this, perhaps even using them to do the integration. (Recall that Bidzos is involved in a couple of efforts along these lines.)
They're certainly helping us, reviewing our proposals, etc.
(Ultra-speculative scenario: If I were the NSA/FBI/COMINT establishment, anxious to ensure "escrowed access," Netscape is something I'd be looking at. Ultra-speculatively, we should be on the lookout for any evidence that Netscape will be deploying any kind of "software key escrow" scheme, e.g., any links to the TIS proposals, to Denning, etc. "GAKscape"?)
No plans so far... Marc -- Marc Andreessen Netscape Communications Corp. Mountain View, CA marca@mcom.com
Adam Shostack wrote:
It my personal feeling that Netscape doesn't have the right talent mix to develop secure software. For example, they may well get the RSA parts right, and then store the passphrase in a text file, 'for ease of use.' The RSA is secure, but the system is not secure if usnauthorized people using your machine is a possibility.
Writing secure software is a difficult and tricky buisness that requires a lot of effort; early versions of Mosaic had problems.
Netscape is seeking people to write this stuff, as we heard at the last Cypherpunks meeting. So, this is the chance for Cyppherpunks to see it done right. I will speculate that Netscape, being a _very_ high-visibility company, is in contact with the folks at RSA Data Security about this, perhaps even using them to do the integration. (Recall that Bidzos is involved in a couple of efforts along these lines.) This doesn't mean they'll do it right, natch, but it gives us hope that the crypto protocols will at least be well-handled. (Ultra-speculative scenario: If I were the NSA/FBI/COMINT establishment, anxious to ensure "escrowed access," Netscape is something I'd be looking at. Ultra-speculatively, we should be on the lookout for any evidence that Netscape will be deploying any kind of "software key escrow" scheme, e.g., any links to the TIS proposals, to Denning, etc. "GAKscape"?) --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Cypherpunks list: majordomo@toad.com with body message of only: subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tcmay
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Here is a posting I made to www-security a few days ago when Netscape announced SSL. It did not get any response. I see though that they at least fixed their spelling... Date: Sun, 27 Nov 1994 12:12:47 -0800 From: Hal <hfinney@shell.portal.com> X-To: www-security@ns1.rutgers.edu Subject: Re: info on proposed SSL protocol and Netscape implementation Sender: owner-www-security@ns1.Rutgers.EDU I have a few comments on the proposed SSL and Netscape's HTTP-SSL that uses it. First, CHALLENGE is consistently mis-spelled CHALLANGE throughout the SSL document. Second, 3 cyphers are specified in this version of the document: RC4, RC2, and DES. I would like to see 3DES and/or IDEA. RC4 and RC2 have not to my knowledge received much public scrutiny, and the 56 bit key size of DES is of questionable security today. Of course these would be for the non-export versions. Third, it is not clear how practical the use of X.509 certificates will be. For example, the "name" field in the certificate must somehow be checked against the information which the client has about the server. Typically this will just be a machine address like home.mcom.com or something similar. Is X.509 a good fit for this purpose? I am not too familiar with X.509 but generally the names that I have seen are not in this form. Fourth, it would be nice if there were some support for non-certificate authentication of the server's public key. For example, the client may have obtained that key previously. I believe SHTTP is more flexible in this area. Fifth, I don't really like the idea that the Netscape client embeds "approved" certificate authority keys. I suspect that the CA situation is going to be in flux for quite a long time and one's client could easily get out of date. Note that the reliance on CA's seems to have slowed the acceptance of PEM as a widely used standard. PGP's anarchic "web of trust" has perhaps been a better fit to net culture. Sixth, the use of "https:" as a URL type for secure links provides for a very strict separation of secure and non-secure connections. Furthermore, this separation is chosen by the server operator. I would like to see a more flexible system, one where the client has more control over what information is transferred securely. The server may want to set a minimum, and refuse to exchange certain information non-securely, but it should not IMO also set the maximum. Some clients may be more privacy conscious than others. Some may not want information about which URL's they use to be available to local snoopers. The Netscape approach seems to put too much control into the hands of the servers and not enough into the hands of the clients. SHTTP also uses a special URL, but it seemed to be more open to the possibility of a negotiation between client and server for secure connections even on "http:" URLs. This would be done by having backwards compatibility with HTTP in which a non-secure-aware client or server would ignore or reject the security enhancements. The transaction could then proceed in non-secure mode with appropriate information displays to the user. SSL does not appear to allow for this kind of compatibility. Despite the negative tone here I think that SSL is potentially a good step towards enhanced privacy on the net. I think though that eventually encryption will be used far more widely than Netscape seems to have in mind. The net is so insecure that I suspect people will want privacy for all but the most casual uses. Hal Finney hfinney@shell.portal.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 iQBVAwUBLujrKhnMLJtOy9MBAQFYdwH/VAObt9l6IKb44Z9mbCiz6DiRPjjA/mQp ZZq0ns/6xKQZvw3L77mTRECRuU8Gf1j3jUXZnqPxo7t8v+IyUuplCQ== =Z+0f -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
In article <199412091814.NAA07757@hermes.bwh.harvard.edu>, adam@bwh.harvard.edu (Adam Shostack) wrote:
It my personal feeling that Netscape doesn't have the right talent mix to develop secure software. For example, they may well get the RSA parts right, and then store the passphrase in a text file, 'for ease of use.'
My goodness, that's a bit malicious and unsubstantiated, isn't it? Marc -- Marc Andreessen Netscape Communications Corp. Mountain View, CA marca@mcom.com
Marc Andreessen wrote: | In article <199412091814.NAA07757@hermes.bwh.harvard.edu>, adam@bwh.harvard.edu (Adam Shostack) wrote: | | > It my personal feeling that Netscape doesn't have the right | > talent mix to develop secure software. For example, they may well get | > the RSA parts right, and then store the passphrase in a text file, | > 'for ease of use.' | | My goodness, that's a bit malicious and unsubstantiated, isn't it? Maybe, but one, you substantiate it yourself, and two, I did say it is my personal feeling. I'll expand on it slightly by pointing to the fact that there have been potentially serious bugs in Mosiac. Thats understandable, writing really secure software that does lots of stuff based on potentially malicious input is a tough task. The fact that it is understandable does not make it acceptable.n Until you hire the experts mentioned below, I'll continue to assume that your talent mix does not include said experts. In message <199412112232.WAA24075@neon.mcom.com> Marc Andreessen writes: >Absolutely. We certainly welcome any level of comments and >criticism about the SSL protocol and our implementation, and >we're recruiting for one or two more security experts to join >us -- we'll be doing quite a bit of more advanced crypto over >the next couple years, if all goes well. If anyone's >interested, please drop me a note. Adam -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume
participants (5)
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Adam Shostack -
ddt＠lsd.com -
Hal -
marca＠mcom.com -
tcmay＠netcom.com