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sad state of symmetric crypto - algebraic ignoring continues?
by coderman 10 Jan '16

10 Jan '16

algebraic attacks on GHOST, etc: - http://crypto.2015.rump.cr.yp.to/1ea2c6c01144e0e7f6b14b324c5e4562.pdf - https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/812.pdf AES has intentional algebraic structure as well, yet also resists linear, differential cryptanalysis. (e.g. strong in these aspects despite simple algebraic structure) how long until someone discovers a workable algebraic attack? when will we get S-Box constants and other magics truly generated at random? No more up my sleeve numbers! :) best regards,

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What did Linode do?
by Ryan Carboni 08 Jan '16

08 Jan '16

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/3zlttw/linode_user_credentials_c… First under DDOS attack, now being hacked. What did Linode do?

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Re: [Cryptography] Verisimilitrust
by grarpamp 08 Jan '16

08 Jan '16

On Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 4:09 AM, Peter Gutmann <pgut001(a)cs.auckland.ac.nz> wrote: > From the Mozilla policy list, in a discussion about what to do about > Kazakhstan requesting that their MITM certificate be added to the browser > trust lists: > > It would appear from this information, that this CA (and probably others > like it) is deliberately serving a dual role: > > 1. It is the legitimate trust anchor for some domains that browser > users will need to access (in this case: Kazakh government sites > under gov.kz). > > 2. It is the trust anchor for fake MITM certificates used to harm > browser users, and which should thus be regarded as invalid. > > causing an immediate panicked response to try and find a reason to deny the > request, because the CA/Browser Forum policies don't actually say you can't > have an acknowledged MITM cert as a trusted root: > > Kazakhstan has submitted the request for root inclusion: > https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1232689 > > So, we really do need to have this discussion now. > > I think we need to formally give up on the use of the word "trust" in its > conventional sense in relation to PKI. Browser PKI has done to the term > "trust" what the popular press has done to the word "hacker". > > Thus it would be prudent to extend the trust list format (and the NSS code > using it) to be able to specify additional restrictions beyond those > specified in the CA root itself. > > [...] > > In other words certificates are going to be turned inside-out, instead of the > cert encoding policy-related information as per X.509, we've got a third party > (browser vendors) imposing its policy on the certificate from the outside. > We've already got the same third party overriding CAs on revocation via > hardcoded cert blacklists, and as has been shown over and over again, CAs do > only the bare minimum of checking for anything but EV certs. So if this > change is made we can summarise the purpose of a CA as follows: > > Verify identity in certs - Not really (except to justify premium-priced EVs). > Provide policy for certs - No, the browser vendor will. > Provide revocation info for certs - No, the browser vendor will. > Charge money to turn off the browser warnings - Yes. > > So that's pretty much pared browser PKI down to its essence, a license to > print money for a select group of companies. The entire planet ignored warnings preached by early wise men and bought into the CA "trust" hype and money printing game for decades. Shame it took rampant surveillance and attacks for people to begin pulling their head out of the sand, let alone search for different models. If your new model involves someone getting rich, or relies on centralization / trust that you have no part in endorsing... it's broken.

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FBI Digital Forensic Examination: A Case Study
by Michael Best 08 Jan '16

08 Jan '16

https://leb.fbi.gov/2016/january/forensic-spotlight-digital-forensic-examin… Copied below (some/all of the formatting will likely be stripped by the mailing list) *Forensic Spotlight* *Digital Forensic Examination: A Case Study* By John McHenry and Michael Gorn, M.S. 1/6/2016 A 2014 investigation into the distribution of child pornography revealed the identity and geographic location of a suspect. The case expanded to include domestic and international elements and collaboration by multiple law enforcement agencies associated with the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force. A Sarasota, Florida, municipality was tasked with the local investigation, which led to the January 2015 arrest of a 34-year-old male. The city requested the assistance of Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office Intelligence Unit digital forensics experts to complete a comprehensive examination of the devices seized during the arrest. The information presented with the case indicated that the suspect was a local commercial and residential painter. *Evidence* Among the items presented for digital forensic examination was a cell phone with a 13+ megapixel camera capable of capturing high definition images. Many of the images captured by and extracted from the phone contained a pixel resolution of 2322 x 4128 and metadata directly linking the photos to the device. During the forensic examination, experts collected evidence to support charges for the possession, manufacture, and transmission of child pornography. The pictures included adult hands and pornographic images of infants. [image: Open quotes] As detectives further enlarged the pictures on the monitor, a high level of detail was witnessed within the fingerprints. In April 2015 Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office detectives, using a 42” high definition monitor, observed a paint-like substance on the hands in the photos, which correlated to the suspect’s trade as a painter. As detectives further enlarged the pictures on the monitor, a high level of detail was witnessed within the fingerprints. After removing the pornographic details, investigators submitted five images to the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office Fingerprint Unit with a request for analysis. The argument of “some other guy did it” is a common defense in the field of digital forensics because it often is not possible to determine who actually used a device. Therefore, the potential of a fingerprint association becomes vitally important. *Print Examination* A latent print examiner (LPE) received the case and examined the ridge detail present in the images. In one image (figure 1), detail was of sufficient quality and quantity to be identified as the left middle finger of the suspect when compared with fingerprints taken during the jail booking process. Due to the digital image being a reversal of the print on the booking card, the print as visualized in the phone image had to be inverted. *Figure 1* [image: FS figure 1.jpg] This first identification was enough for the state attorney’s office to request a motion to compel the offender to provide major case prints. The office granted the motion, and the LPE went to the courtroom to take the set of prints. Further examination of two digital images from the phone led to identification of the left thumb of the suspect on the major case prints. These images were inverted for comparison. A second qualified LPE verified all identifications. *Trial* Prior to trial the defense counsel successfully argued to have the suspect’s confession suppressed. No faces were present in any images. This made the fingerprint evidence extremely valuable because the suspect could argue that a partner who had the same first name shared a common e-mail account, and the fingers depicted in the images were from the partner. The subject also could claim guilt for possession, distribution, and transmission of child pornography, but not the manufacture. *Conclusion* The identifications made by the latent print examiners proved that the suspect was involved directly in the acts as witnessed in the images recovered by the digital forensic detectives. This conclusive evidence was one piece of the forensic puzzle that assisted the jury in finding the offender guilty of 26 charges, including capital sexual battery; molestation; and possession, distribution, and transmission of child pornography. The offender faces up to life in prison. *Detective McHenry is a certified forensic computer examiner assigned to the digital forensics laboratory of the Sarasota County, Florida, Sheriff’s Office.* *Mr. Gorn is a certified crime scene investigator and supervisor of the forensic services unit for the Sarasota County, Florida, Sheriff’s Office.* The *Bulletin* currently is seeking submissions for its Forensic Spotlight, a department that highlights current and noteworthy developments in the forensic sciences. Articles focus on topics, such as fingerprinting, ballistics, toxicology, paint analysis, document validity, and other laboratory-based technology used in crime solving. Submissions can be sent to*leb(a)ic.fbi.gov* <https://leb.fbi.gov/owa/redir.aspx?SURL=YpOZ5D9fwGUCND6iaKk_OGoEqHSOET9bweq…> for review and possible publication.

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A good way to spur adoption of strong cryptography and security
by Ryan Carboni 08 Jan '16

08 Jan '16

Most consumer routers and modems are outdated, and use firmware that's never or rarely updated. It would be trivial to hack into any such devices used by government employees at home and correlate the user to a database to gather additional information on them. Can foreign governments still teach blackmailed government employees how to pass a polygraph? Seems like counterintelligence investigations now need to include labor intensive firmware dumps of routers. Not like the government accomplishes anything good nowadays anyway.

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Obama gonna crypto your guns, they gonna throw the killswitch on yall
by grarpamp 08 Jan '16

08 Jan '16

Digital smart guns, digital finger photo voice dna retina prints, digital databases and checkpoints, digital connected backdoored clipper chipped things, bigdata on you, legal twisting of former rights, bans on your uses of digits, no analog, no cash, ubiquitous worldwide surveillance, tracking and control... It's all falling into place, from every country and government... the great digital killswitch and enslavement device is coming. Kiss your freedom goodbye.

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Re: [tor-talk] Chaum Fathers Bastard Child To RubberHose ... PrivaTegrity cMix
by grarpamp 08 Jan '16

08 Jan '16

On Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 4:22 AM, Bryan Ford <brynosaurus(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Andy Isaacson wrote: >> The privaTegrity (PT) backdoor is significantly more malignant than the >> Tor dirauth issue. [Massive snip in from worthwhile tor-talk thread on central points of authority / DHT...] Are there networks where there is an autonomous AI engine within the network itself, a possible distributed execution sandbox, that decides what, likely changing over time, set of nodes will serve elevated roles? And where AI's programmed evaluation metrics may somehow be tied to some kind of consensus wherein like blockchain, major portions of net must agree or risk fork. And how self-adaptive and permanent is the AI?

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Re: FBI Digital Forensic Examination: A Case Study
by Michael Best 08 Jan '16

08 Jan '16

That was the point.

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A Redaction Re-Visited: NSA Targeted “The Two Leading” Encryption Chips
by Rayzer 08 Jan '16

08 Jan '16

Plain text and html... > ..and no, I don't give a fuck about anyone's Greenwald-bashing. AFAICT > he's doing it EXACTLY right. Want Dox dumps? Talk to the Anonymous > children. The ones with more than a 3rd grade vocabulary MIGHT be able > to formulate a coherent sentence on paper. > > Also see this thread at a reddit IAMA that greenwald held regarding > the topic. A number of engineering types [scroll down... 'bardfinn'] > were speculating based on Greenwald's discussion > https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1nisdy/were_glenn_greenwald_and_jani… [...] On September 5, 2013, The Guardian <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-gchq-encryption-codes-secu…>, the /New York Times <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/us/nsa-foils-much-internet-encryption.htm…>// /and/ProPublica <http://www.propublica.org/article/the-nsas-secret-campaign-to-crack-undermi…> /jointly reported — based on documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden — that the National Security Agency had compromised some of the encryption that is most commonly used to secure internet transactions. The /NYT /explained/ /that NSA “has circumvented or cracked much of the encryption, or digital scrambling, that guards global commerce and banking systems, protects sensitive data like trade secrets and medical records, and automatically secures the emails, web searches, internet chats and phone calls of Americans and others around the world.” One 2010 memo described that “for the past decade, NSA has led an aggressive, multipronged effort to break widely used internet encryption technologies.” In support of the reporting, all three papers published redacted portions of documents from the NSA along with its British counterpart, GCHQ. Prior to publication of the story, the NSA vehemently argued that any reporting of any kind on this program would jeopardize national security by alerting terrorists to the fact that encryption products had been successfully compromised. After the stories were published, U.S. officials aggressively attacked <http://www.reuters.com/article/net-us-usa-security-snowden-intelligence-idU…> the newspapers for endangering national security and helping terrorists with these revelations. All three newspapers reporting this story rejected those arguments prior to publication and decided to report the encryption-cracking successes. Then-/NYT/ Executive Editor Jill Abramson described <http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/decision-to-publish-agains…> the decision to publish as “not a particularly anguished one” in light of the public interest in knowing about this program, and /ProPublica/ editors published a lengthy explanation <http://www.propublica.org/article/why-we-published-the-decryption-story> along with the story justifying their decision. All three outlets, while reporting the anti-encryption efforts, redacted portions of the documents they published or described. One redaction in particular, found in the /NYT /documents <http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/09/05/us/documents-reveal-nsa-campa…>, from the FY 2013 “black budget,” proved to be especially controversial among tech and security experts, as they believed that the specific identity of compromised encryption standards was being concealed by the redaction. None of the documents in the Snowden archive identify all or even most of the encryption standards that had been targeted, and there was a concern that if an attempt were made to identify one or two of them, it could mislead the public into believing that the others were safe. There also seemed to be a concern among some editors that any attempt to identify specific encryption standards would enable terrorists to know which ones to avoid. One redaction in particular, from the /NYT/, was designed to strike this balance and was the one that became most controversial: The issue of this specific redaction was raised <https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/464044144906600448> again <https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/464015111913369600> by security researchers last month <https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/678573907947966464> in the wake of news <https://forums.juniper.net/t5/Security-Incident-Response/Important-Announce…> of a backdoor found on Juniper systems, followed by /The Intercept/’s reporting <https://theintercept.com/2015/12/23/juniper-firewalls-successfully-targeted…> that the NSA and GCHQ had targeted Juniper. In light of that news, we examined the documents referenced by those 2013 articles with particular attention to that controversial redaction, and decided that it was warranted to un-redact that passage. It reads as follows: <https://prod01-cdn07.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-uploads/sites/1/2016/01/bull.png> The reference to “the two leading encryption chips” provides some hints, but no definitive proof, as to which ones were successfully targeted. Matthew Green, a cryptography expert at Johns Hopkins, declined to speculate on which companies this might reference. But he said that “the damage has already been done. From what I’ve heard, many foreign purchasers have already begun to look at all U.S.-manufactured encryption technology with a much more skeptical eye as a result of what the NSA has done. That’s too bad, because I suspect only a minority of products have been compromised this way.” NSA requested until 5 p.m. today to respond but then failed to do so. (/Update/: The NSA subsequently emailed to say: “It would be accurate to state that NSA declined to comment.”) [...] https://theintercept.com/2016/01/04/a-redaction-re-visited-nsa-targeted-the… -- RR "You might want to ask an expert about that - I just fiddled around with mine until it worked..."

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Electronic Freedom Foundation selective in support of freedom
by Ryan Carboni 07 Jan '16

07 Jan '16

> These occurred five years apart, and only the second one involved an actual > court case. I don't think it's a reasonable comparison. Maybe not. But one must tirelessly question inconsistencies. The amount of harm to Backpage is very indirect, it was a letter to credit card companies. The EFF however is okay with a letter to a printer - the web host - to discontinue service. Comparatively, the harm to wikileaks was far greater than that to Backpage, but the EFF was more willing to support Backpage with a brief, than to volunteer support to Wikileaks. I have no doubt that Glenn Greenwald will never mention this, afterall, he himself is selective in questioning other public figures. He'd never question public figures in a meaningful way. And apparently neither will the EFF. With ineffective dissidents like these, who needs oppression?

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