Re: [Cryptography] tamper-evident crypto?
----- Forwarded message from John Denker <jsd@av8n.com> ----- Date: Fri, 06 Sep 2013 12:31:47 -0700 From: John Denker <jsd@av8n.com> To: "cryptography@metzdowd.com" <cryptography@metzdowd.com> Subject: Re: [Cryptography] tamper-evident crypto? User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:17.0) Gecko/20130803 Thunderbird/17.0.8 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 09/05/2013 06:48 PM, Richard Clayton wrote:
so you'd probably fail to observe any background activity that tested whether this information was plausible or not .... and then some chance event would occur that caused someone from Law Enforcement (or even a furnace maintenance technician) to have to look in the basement.
(assuming that the NSA considered this [kiddie porn] important enough to pursue) *) If they don't like that flavor of bait, we can give
Well, I'm sure /somebody/ on this list is clever enough to arrange countersurveillance and counterintrusion measures... a) especially given that detecting surveillance and/or intrusion is the whole point of the exercise; b) especially given that we have all the time in the world to arrange boatloads of nanny-cams and silent alarms etc., arranging everything in advance, before provoking the opponent; c) especially given that we know it's a trap, and the opponent probably isn't expecting a trap; d) especially given that the opponent has a track record of being sometimes lazy ... for instance by swearing that the fruits of illegal wiretaps came from a "confidential informant who has been reliable in the past" and using that as the basis for a search warrant, at which point you've got them for perjury as well as illegal wiretapping, *and* you know your information security is broken; e) especially given that we get to run this operation more than once. them something else. For example, it is known that there is a large-diameter pipeline from the NSA to the DEA. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/05/the-nsa-is-givi... *) Again: We get to run this operation more than once. I repeat the question from the very beginning of this thread: Shouldn't this be part of the /ongoing/ validation of any data security scheme? There's a rule that says that you shouldn't claim a crypto system is secure unless it has been subjected to serious cryptanalysis. I'm just taking the next step in this direction. If you want to know whether or not the system is broken, /measure/ whether or not it is broken. One of the rules in science, business, military planning, et cetera is to consider /all/ the plausible hypotheses. Once you consider the possibility that your data security is broken, the obvious next step is to design an experiment to /measure/ how much breakage there is. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.12 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iD8DBQFSKi2j2FOSJqrRXAoRAtJAAJ9zUubRz66YdcdRM3G3Wpx70TcDtgCgm9tE xiI/Ikqt4PbbTDZeC0sK9vI= =UYAV -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ The cryptography mailing list cryptography@metzdowd.com http://www.metzdowd.com/mailman/listinfo/cryptography ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5
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Well, I'm sure /somebody/ on this list is clever enough to arrange countersurveillance and counterintrusion measures...
this is both much more complicated for a technically savvy adversary, and a horrible idea. your legal council might call it a "lunatic plan", ... would you be fooled by the approach you describe? most/all? attacks to date using truly 0day exploits have been inter-nation-state espionage and "cyberwar". non-exclusive 0day platforms for surveillance are fairly visible. (e.g. domestic activist suppresion, etc.) even the onion hack used weeks old fodder to catch the low hanging fruit.
One of the rules in science, business, military planning, et cetera is to consider /all/ the plausible hypotheses. Once you consider the possibility that your data security is broken, the obvious next step is to design an experiment to /measure/ how much breakage there is.
if you decide to play this game, the "red teaming" can also provide useful estimate on the cost to penetrate. e.g. is the time and money hardening providing RoI? i hear you convince a sufficiently resourced attacker, you're of sufficient value and legitimacy, and fend off the gamut of known attacks, you see escalation to some very inventive levels... personally i'd bet on the powerball ;P ... last but not least, as an ethical discussion, on a less serious tangent, what would you do with a high value captured payload? you have a tactical value to consider, you have a monetary value to consider, you have a reputation/P.R. value to consider, you have a full disclosure value to consider, within your reasoning for greatest benefit.
participants (2)
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coderman -
Eugen Leitl