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Re: [Cryptography] "Flip Feng Shui: Hammering a Needle in the Software Stack"
by Georgi Guninski 03 Sep '16

03 Sep '16

On Fri, Sep 02, 2016 at 10:56:10AM -0400, Jerry Leichter wrote: > > Why bother with patching public keys, making them amenable to > > factorization, if you can patch executable code instead? > > > > If you can target executable code (and I see why not, it's all the > > same to KSM), it is very clear that there cannot be a software-only > > defense.... > The technique cannot be aimed exactly: You can flip some unpredictable, uncontrollable subset of the bits in a word. (The vulnerability of particular bits is dependent on physical variations in the memory cells.) > ... > Attacks against the executable code are certainly the worst case, and you might be able to find security-sensitive but very rarely executed code to attack. But this is likely much harder to pull off than the attack outlined here. > Flipping random bits in a word at chosen location is very powerful primitive. I am taking bets that it is moderately easy to exploit via many vectors. Flipping random bits of zero word make it nonzero. In a boolean context, this flips False and True, screwing the logic. eg in: if(is_root || is_authorized) give_em_power(); else drop_em();

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Suspect in kernel.org breakin arrested
by Zenaan Harkness 03 Sep '16

03 Sep '16

------------------------------------------------------------------------ https://lwn.net/Articles/699128/ Suspect in kernel.org breakin arrested [Announcements] Posted Sep 2, 2016 14:08 UTC (Fri) by corbet The US Department of Justice has announced[1] that it has arrested a suspect in the 2011 kernel.org breakin[2]. "[Donald Ryan] Austin is charged with causing damage to four servers located in the Bay Area by installing malicious software. Specifically, he is alleged to have gained unauthorized access to the four servers by using the credentials of an individual associated with the Linux Kernel Organization. According to the indictment, Austin used that access to install rootkit and trojan software, as well as to make other changes to the servers." [1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/florida-computer-programmer-arrested-h… [2] https://lwn.net/Articles/464233/

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Re: [Cryptography] New approach needed to IT, says NIST's top cyber scientist
by grarpamp 02 Sep '16

02 Sep '16

On Fri, Sep 2, 2016 at 5:02 PM, Kent Borg <kentborg(a)borg.org> wrote: > http://fedscoop.com/ron-ross-cybersecurity-comission-august-2016 > http://www.metzdowd.com/pipermail/cryptography/2016-July/029750.html > http://www.borg.org/~kentborg/kentborg-resume-long-2016-07-16.pdf > the old cypherpunk perspective that writing good crypto code will solve our > security problems. ... What good is > any of this if input isn't sanitized and attackers can get directly to the > backing database? (https://xkcd.com/327/) Re xkcd, for similar search Subject: "Privacy Centric Naming of Humans"

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UK's Cobham Supplies Spy Gear To Global LE
by grarpamp 02 Sep '16

02 Sep '16

https://theintercept.com/2016/09/01/leaked-catalogue-reveals-a-vast-array-o… https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3038285-2014-Cobham-TCS-Catalog.html http://www.cobham.com/tcs http://www.domotactical.com/ A confidential, 120-page catalogue of spy equipment, originating from British defense firm Cobham and circulated to U.S. law enforcement, touts gear that can intercept wireless calls and text messages, locate people via their mobile phones, and jam cellular communications in a particular area. The catalogue was obtained by The Intercept as part of a large trove of documents originating within the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, where spokesperson Molly Best confirmed Cobham wares have been purchased but did not provide further information. The document provides a rare look at the wide range of electronic surveillance tactics used by police and militaries in the U.S. and abroad, offering equipment ranging from black boxes that can monitor an entire town’s cellular signals to microphones hidden in lighters and cameras hidden in trashcans.

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Pascal Coin: A P2P cryptocurrency without need of historical operations
by grarpamp 02 Sep '16

02 Sep '16

On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 3:18 AM, Bastiani Fortress <bastianifortress(a)yandex.com> wrote: > Someone posted in metzdowd mailing list about a new PascalCoin, with the > claim that it does not need to keep transaction history to prevent double > spending. Didn't read the full white paper yet, but it looks a little > undetailed and absract at a first glance. Anybody checked it yet? > > Also the paper apologizes in advance for possible mistranslations from its > catalan language original copy :) Better when people include some kind of linkage... ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: BPascal BlockChain <bpascalblockchain(a)gmail.com> Date: Fri, Aug 12, 2016 at 11:52 AM To: cryptography(a)metzdowd.com Hi everybody. I want to let you know a new crypto currency (yet, another one) that has some differences from previous. Most important is that is designed to don't need historical operations to work and control double spend. Please read the Pascal Coin concept at White Paper: https://github.com/PascalCoin/PascalCoin/blob/master/PascalCoin%20White%20P… It's name is "Pascal Coin" due it's written in Pascal language. Full source code is available under the MIT license. Full Source code is available at GitHub: https://github.com/PascalCoin/PascalCoin And also, download a Windows installer of the Pascal Coin miner and Explorer at SourceForge: https://sourceforge.net/projects/pascalcoin/files/PascalCoinWalletB1.0.1.0.… I agree your comments to me at this email: bpascalblockchain(a)gmail.com Note: Genesis block started at same time than BitCoin Block 424720 (2016-08-11) Thanks! Albert Molina

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Re: [Cryptography] ORWL - The First Open Source, Physically Secure Computer
by grarpamp 02 Sep '16

02 Sep '16

On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 12:49 AM, Randy Bush <randy(a)psg.com> wrote: > there are a fair number of scary papers about fpga trojans. it is very > hard to verify fabbed silicon, driving folk to desperate techniques such > as multi-fab comparison etc. Meaningfully / reliably / repeatably decapping small micron process, paying for multi-fab runs, or attempting to exhaustively pattern test billions of gates via i/o pins let alone the hidden supervisor you can't test, seems a bit pointless. Which is why you openfab and infuse your open audit, verification, public access, "no secrets" policies, throughout the entire process... design, supply, tooling, manufacture, n-man staffing, packaging, etc. All fabs and product today are effectively secret. That's beyond stupid. Especially for things you "rely on". Fix that.

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Dark Patterns
by grarpamp 02 Sep '16

02 Sep '16

http://darkpatterns.org/ A Dark Pattern is a user interface that has been carefully crafted to trick users into doing things, such as buying insurance with their purchase or signing up for recurring bills. Normally when you think of “bad design”, you think of the creator as being sloppy or lazy but with no ill intent. This type of bad design is known as a “UI anti-pattern”. Dark Patterns are different – they are not mistakes, they are carefully crafted with a solid understanding of human psychology, and they do not have the user’s interests in mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VER5_j9VHI http://www.fleen.org/ http://pmwdzvbyvnmwobk5.onion/project/brain_hacking The answers are out there... seek, and ye shall find...

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Fwd: [Cryptography] "Flip Feng Shui: Hammering a Needle in the Software Stack"
by Georgi Guninski 02 Sep '16

02 Sep '16

----- Forwarded message from Jerry Leichter <leichter(a)lrw.com> ----- Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2016 11:33:16 -0400 From: Jerry Leichter <leichter(a)lrw.com> To: Cryptography List <cryptography(a)metzdowd.com> Subject: [Cryptography] "Flip Feng Shui: Hammering a Needle in the Software Stack" X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.3124) "We introduce Flip Feng Shui (FFS), a new exploitation vector which allows an attacker to induce bit flips over arbitrary physical memory in a fully controlled way. FFS relies on hardware bugs to induce bit flips over memory and on the ability to surgically control the physical memory layout to corrupt attacker-targeted data anywhere in the software stack.... Memory deduplication allows an attacker to reverse-map any physical page into a virtual page she owns as long as the page’s contents are known. Rowhammer, in turn, allows an attacker to flip bits in controlled (initially unknown) locations in the target page. We show FFS is extremely powerful: a malicious VM in a practical cloud setting can gain unauthorized access to a co-hosted victim VM running OpenSSH. Using FFS, we exemplify end-to-end attacks breaking OpenSSH public-key authentication, and forging GPG signatures from trusted keys, thereby compromising the Ubuntu/Debian update mechanism." https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/usenixsecurity16/sec16_paper… -- Jerry _______________________________________________ The cryptography mailing list cryptography(a)metzdowd.com http://www.metzdowd.com/mailman/listinfo/cryptography ----- End forwarded message ----- Does Rowhammer work in clouds? According to the popular story it affected only laptops.

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Fwd: <nettime> Feminist Principles of the Internet
by HateSpeech 02 Sep '16

02 Sep '16

> Cecilia Tanaka: > www.feministinternet.net Fuck your feminist (otherist) principals.

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Exchange / Trading / Analysis Software [re: Zenbot3 BTC/ETH/LTC bot]
by Carlos Rodriguez 02 Sep '16

02 Sep '16

grarpamp: > What software is out there that implements an exchange itself? > Be it for currency pairs, stocks, or commodity trade floor. > Currency pairs being the primary example above. Centralized model: http://buttercoin.net/ (old, last commit 2 years ago) Decentralized: https://bitsquare.io/ (but it’s not very popular yet, not much trade volume) http://www.coinffeine.com/ (not much info on it) Personally I don’t see these programs ever netting enough trade volume to rival top private exchanges. Traders won’t show up if the liquidity isn’t there.

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