CDR: Re: Lions and Tigers and Backdoors, oh, my...

[Michael Motyka]

> On Wed, 27 Sep 2000, David Honig wrote:
> 
> >Modularity *is* useful for keeping things simple enough to analyze, but
> >isn't a library with a well-defined API sufficient?
> 
> This sort of highlights how the current models of shared code fail. A good
> deal of modularity and independence of cryptography implementations (what
> Tim probably drives at with his comment of making life too easy for Three
> Letter Agencies) could be achieved with proper shared libraries with well
> thought out APIs. Only DLLs and alike aren't quite stable enough to be used
> for such heavy inter-vendor use. If they were, the massive single function
> apps could be implemented as lighter wrappers around them and modularity
> would be maintained, all without compromising ease of use. There would be
> security considerations in using someone else's library, yes, but a proper
> authentication architecture and/or open source development could be used to
> alleviate those. Too bad M$ does not place a lot of weight on such design
> considerations, instead pushing its own centralized model.
> 
> Sampo Syreeni <decoy at iki.fi>, aka decoy, student/math/Helsinki university
> 
You're running these crypto modules on an MS OS? Plaintext is entered
via the PC HW/MS Drivers and then exists in memory on the MS system?
This probably describes the environment for most users, though not
necessarily most of those on this list. So why run any crypto at all? On
Linux, maybe, unless you installed a binary that was compromised or
there is a keyboard logger built into the chipset. But on MS it is
probably wasted cycles. Unless it gives you a warm fuzzy feeling, I
guess. Maybe I'm just paranoid.

Mike