Re: [gentoo-user] Internet security.
[2] http://michael.orlitzky.com/articles/why_im_against_ca-signed_certificates.php . I like to state some of what you say here as website certificates are only as trusted as the LEAST trustworthy CA in the trusted certificate store
Re: [gentoo-user] Internet security.
On Mon, Sep 9, 2013 at 6:05 AM, Michael Orlitzky mich...@orlitzky.comwrote: The CA infrastructure was never secure. It exists to transfer money away from website owners and into the bank accounts of the CAs and browser makers. Security may be one of their goals, but it's certainly not the motivating one. Well, at least CAcert doesn't exist for money. To avoid a tirade here, I've already written about this: [1] http://michael.orlitzky.com/articles/in_defense_of_self-signed_certificates.php [2] http://michael.orlitzky.com/articles/why_im_against_ca-signed_certificates.php I've got a question about Gentoo in this case. If we assume that stage3 is trusted, does portage check that mirrors are trusted? I'm not sure about this. But if it does, then distfiles checksums are also checked, so they are trusted, too. In this case you could trust a running browser. Until your system becomes compromised in other ways. This would be OS packaging system problem, not the problem with CA--user trust model.
Re: [gentoo-user] Internet security.
There's a lot FUD out there and equally there is some truth. the NSA we can decrypt everything statement was really very vague, and can easily be done if you have a lot of taps (ala PRISM) and start doing mitm attacks to reduce the level of security to something that is crackable. for 'compatibility' very many low powered encryption schemes are supported and it is these that are the issue. if you are using ipsec tunnels with aes encryption you can happily ignore these. if you are using mpls networks you can almost guarantee your isp and therefore your network is compromised. the question really is what do you define as security ? if someone was to hit you on the head with a hammer, how long til you willingly gave out your passwords ? [1] I agree with the lack of faith in certificate CA's and i feel that the reason that warnings over ssl are so severe is to spoon feed folks into the owned networks. I far more trust the way mozilla do their web of trust [2] but equally am aware that trolls live in the crowds. while ssh authorized_keys are more secure than passwords, i can't (and am hoping someone can point me to) find how to track failed logins as folks bruteforce their way in. yes it's orders of magnitude more difficult but then internet speed is now orders of magnitude faster, and OTP are looking more sensible every day [3] to me. i used to use windows live messenger and right near the end found that if you send someone a web link to a file filled with /dev/random called passwords.zip you would have some unknown ip connect and download it too. who then is doing that and i trust skype and it's peer2peer nonsense even less. who even knows you can TLS encrypt SIP ? there are many ways of encrypting email but this is not supported from one site to another, even TLS support is often lacking, and GPG the contents means that some folks you send email to cannot read it -- there is always a trade off between usability and security. i read in slashdot that there is a question mark over SELinux because it came from the NSA [4] but this is nonsense, as it is a means of securing processes not network connections. i find it difficult to believe that a backdoor in a locked cupboard in your house can somehow give access through the front door. how far does trust need to be lost [5] before you start fabricating your own chips ? the complexity involved in chip fabs is immense and if bugs can slip through, what else can [6] ultimately a multi layer security approach is required, and security itself needs to be defined. i like privacy so i have net curtains, i don't have a 3 foot thick titanium door with strengthened hinges. if someone looks in my windows, i can see them. either through the window or on cctv. security itself has to be defined so that risk can be managed. so many people buy the biggest lock they can find and forget the hinges. or leave the windows open. even then it doesn't help in terms of power failure or leaking water or gas mains exploding next door (i.e. the definition of security in the sense of safety) to some security means RAID, to others security means offsite backup i like techniques such as port knocking [7] for reducing the size of the scan target if you have a cheap virtual server on each continent and put asterisk on each one; linked by aes ipsec tunnels with a local sip provider in each one then you could probably hide your phone calls quite easily from snoops. until they saw your bank statement and wondered what all these VPS providers and SIP accounts were for, and then the authorities if they were tracking you would go after those. why would you do such a thing? perhaps because you cannot trust the monopoly provider of a country to screen its equipment [8] even things like cookie tracking for advertising purposes - on the lighter side what if your kids see the ads for the stuff you are buying them for christmas ? surprise ruined? where does it stop - its one thing for google to announce governments want your search history, and another for advertising companies to sell your profile and tracking, essentially ad companies are doing the governments snooping job for them. ultimately it's down to risk mitigation. do you care if someone is snooping on your grocery list? no? using cookie tracking ? yeah profiling is bad - wouldn't want to end up on a terrorist watchlist because of my amusement with the zombie apocalypse listmania [9] encryption is important because you don't know what other folks in the internet cafe are doing [10] but where do you draw the line ? if you go into a shop do you worry that you are on cctv ? ok i'll stop ranting now, my main point is always have multi layered security - and think about what you are protecting and from whom [1] http://xkcd.com/538/ [2] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/wot-safe-browsing-tool/ [3] http://blog.tremily.us/posts/OTP/ [4]
Re: [gentoo-user] Internet security.
On Mon, Sep 09, 2013 at 10:36:09AM +0100, thegeezer wrote: There's a lot FUD out there and equally there is some truth. the NSA we can decrypt everything statement was really very vague, and can easily be done if you have a lot of taps (ala PRISM) and start doing mitm attacks to reduce the level of security to something that is crackable. for 'compatibility' very many low powered encryption schemes are supported and it is these that are the issue. if you are using ipsec tunnels with aes encryption you can happily ignore these. if you are using mpls networks you can almost guarantee your isp and therefore your network is compromised. the question really is what do you define as security ? if someone was to hit you on the head with a hammer, how long til you willingly gave out your passwords ? [1] I agree with the lack of faith in certificate CA's and i feel that the reason that warnings over ssl are so severe is to spoon feed folks into the owned networks. I far more trust the way mozilla do their web of trust [2] but equally am aware that trolls live in the crowds. while ssh authorized_keys are more secure than passwords, i can't (and am hoping someone can point me to) find how to track failed logins as folks bruteforce their way in. yes it's orders of magnitude more difficult but then internet speed is now orders of magnitude faster, and OTP are looking more sensible every day [3] to me. i used to use windows live messenger and right near the end found that if you send someone a web link to a file filled with /dev/random called passwords.zip you would have some unknown ip connect and download it too. who then is doing that and i trust skype and it's peer2peer nonsense even less. who even knows you can TLS encrypt SIP ? there are many ways of encrypting email but this is not supported from one site to another, even TLS support is often lacking, and GPG the contents means that some folks you send email to cannot read it -- there is always a trade off between usability and security. i read in slashdot that there is a question mark over SELinux because it came from the NSA [4] but this is nonsense, as it is a means of securing processes not network connections. i find it difficult to believe that a backdoor in a locked cupboard in your house can somehow give access through the front door. how far does trust need to be lost [5] before you start fabricating your own chips ? the complexity involved in chip fabs is immense and if bugs can slip through, what else can [6] ultimately a multi layer security approach is required, and security itself needs to be defined. i like privacy so i have net curtains, i don't have a 3 foot thick titanium door with strengthened hinges. if someone looks in my windows, i can see them. either through the window or on cctv. security itself has to be defined so that risk can be managed. so many people buy the biggest lock they can find and forget the hinges. or leave the windows open. even then it doesn't help in terms of power failure or leaking water or gas mains exploding next door (i.e. the definition of security in the sense of safety) to some security means RAID, to others security means offsite backup i like techniques such as port knocking [7] for reducing the size of the scan target if you have a cheap virtual server on each continent and put asterisk on each one; linked by aes ipsec tunnels with a local sip provider in each one then you could probably hide your phone calls quite easily from snoops. until they saw your bank statement and wondered what all these VPS providers and SIP accounts were for, and then the authorities if they were tracking you would go after those. why would you do such a thing? perhaps because you cannot trust the monopoly provider of a country to screen its equipment [8] even things like cookie tracking for advertising purposes - on the lighter side what if your kids see the ads for the stuff you are buying them for christmas ? surprise ruined? where does it stop - its one thing for google to announce governments want your search history, and another for advertising companies to sell your profile and tracking, essentially ad companies are doing the governments snooping job for them. ultimately it's down to risk mitigation. do you care if someone is snooping on your grocery list? no? using cookie tracking ? yeah profiling is bad - wouldn't want to end up on a terrorist watchlist because of my amusement with the zombie apocalypse listmania [9] encryption is important because you don't know what other folks in the internet cafe are doing [10] but where do you draw the line ? if you go into a shop do you worry that you are on cctv ? ok i'll stop ranting now, my main point is always have multi layered security - and think about what you are protecting and from whom [1] http://xkcd.com/538/ [2]
Re: [gentoo-user] Internet security.
When a top-post is that long did you read it before noticing? Well, if you opened this email, All ur base r belong to us! :$ oops, was more focussed on my rant than the etiquette
Re: [gentoo-user] Internet security.
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 09/09/2013 01:28 AM, Mick wrote: Are you saying that 2048 RSA keys are no good anymore? They're probably fine, but when you're making them yourself, the extra bits are free. I would assume that the NSA can crack 1024-bit RSA[1], so why not jump to 4096 so you don't have to do this again in a few years? The performance overhead is also mostly negligible: the only thing the public key crypto is used for is to exchange a secret which is then used to do simpler (and faster) crypto. [1] http://blog.erratasec.com/2013/09/tor-is-still-dhe-1024-nsa-crackable.html -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2.0.20 (GNU/Linux) iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJSLdBEAAoJEBxJck0inpOiGg4P/1fBRpLoSsNnzjhFGro6vHOr uf5/xUR8y2M+7sBXsyS6d7uU1GfKcyWW2UnhuMabz6/bLWSmhCeGAZrAw1n1/oqp DcxvT9Z/SWM/taYCGkMcxAh3pMxCTohS7Dpq1NxjjB2J7+GgITCNfn6b1bxrAjjO cWCjrAh9ozESiP7AGM2vt2CR9mC0AsWMEoUk5zF0wd0BZq7cCSbcnxV54E784OVz TXcmhvISHz5cgC5nWTylCgy4BqLp94A7ZjtuvZntTBhAeU9MFWX1FpnrBbbnOwW4 WPCYF3mRJKKapE6IIN2jHp1l0w8oM/EFrMoGYYQkAG393TWaRgDLqGqAJBDpLDwP +fmeT/xdfn7nyQNV1IwfdeAdcHFPoKw9dcr2kWVYlx8oJQteibSaQmT9L/LLdJfk 5+XgFg2Va6xTx1YsBfRGXc/PIjrQwlJ0rZ2osjKYfE6G1747+sz0fD74rDRoLTrl j8I4QVuMeOqxdXp9hQv6TNuEHXw9vlbKRlOwT/E7sTHWerK5EXFqgUS8txl3Os+3 2iNgz7v/0AhMrH0evtzn2k88agjXY1UrqUotHuGndJxyc1ZhXZuoJAOSFcgLv/ko L1Vzl3lOdaj1nF23RMWZoqdaI4BZyBM4zDx7K+0g3e7YadQ/EkD6mof0sVNGpO4a q6PNGNy9oZaWflDAOHaN =Ni4r -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [gentoo-user] Internet security.
On 09/09/2013 02:50 AM, Adam Carter wrote: [2] http://michael.orlitzky.com/articles/why_im_against_ca-signed_certificates.php . I like to state some of what you say here as website certificates are only as trusted as the LEAST trustworthy CA in the trusted certificate store Right, and most of them you wouldn't even consider trustworthy a priori. If the NSA can hack or persuade *any* of them, every single website on the net is compromised. Here's a list of the ones included with Firefox: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/certs/included/index.html The ones in the USA, we already know, can be forced to do whatever under gag order. Of the ones outside the USA, well, I see a couple that belong to countries where I would be executed for the things I did this weekend.
Re: [gentoo-user] Internet security.
On 09/09/2013 03:19 AM, Pavel Volkov wrote: On Mon, Sep 9, 2013 at 6:05 AM, Michael Orlitzky mich...@orlitzky.com mailto:mich...@orlitzky.com wrote: The CA infrastructure was never secure. It exists to transfer money away from website owners and into the bank accounts of the CAs and browser makers. Security may be one of their goals, but it's certainly not the motivating one. Well, at least CAcert doesn't exist for money. You sort of make my point for me: If you want to access a website that uses a SSL certificate signed by CAcert, you might get an SSL warning. We are sorry, but currently that's still 'normal' as mainstream browsers don't automatically include the CAcert Root Certificate yet. [1] So, CACert certificates don't eliminate the browser warning, which is the only reason you would ever pay for a certificate in the first place. But why don't browsers include CACert? Traditionally vendors seeking to have their root certificates included in browsers (directly or via the underlying OS infrastructure like Safari via OS X's Keychain) would have to seek an expensive Webtrust audit (~$75,000 up-front plus ~$10,000 per year). [2] They don't pay up! So I wouldn't include CACert in my blanket statement, but they're not really part of the CA infrastructure and you might as well use a self-signed cert instead if you're gonna get a warning anyway. I've got a question about Gentoo in this case. If we assume that stage3 is trusted, does portage check that mirrors are trusted? No. There's a GLEP for some of these issues: https://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0057.html The relevant part is, ...any non-Gentoo controlled rsync mirror can modify executable code; as much of this code is per default run as root a malicious mirror could compromise hundreds of systems per day - if cloaked well enough, such an attack could run for weeks before being noticed. [1] http://wiki.cacert.org/FAQ/BrowserClients [2] http://wiki.cacert.org/InclusionStatus
Re: [gentoo-user] Internet security.
On Mon, Sep 09, 2013 at 10:36:09AM +0100, thegeezer wrote: There's a lot FUD out there and equally there is some truth. the NSA we can decrypt everything statement was really very vague, and can easily be done if you have a lot of taps (ala PRISM) and start doing mitm attacks to reduce the level of security to something that is crackable. for 'compatibility' very many low powered encryption schemes are supported and it is these that are the issue. I think you're right because it'll be much easier to read the data at one endpoint than to decrypt everything. If big corporations like Google or Cisco can be forced to cooperate (and they can - that much is fact), it'd be the likelier way to get your data. On the other hand e.g. Bruce Schneier warns of ECC because the NSA promoted it intensively. So there may be some secret that helps to decrypt it in the hands of the NSA (possible something about the NIST curve definitions that reduce the effective keylength). if you are using ipsec tunnels with aes encryption you can happily ignore these. This would be true if you have an secure endpoint. And I think that nowadays nothing is secure... if you are using mpls networks you can almost guarantee your isp and therefore your network is compromised. the question really is what do you define as security ? if someone was to hit you on the head with a hammer, how long til you willingly gave out your passwords ? [1] I agree with the lack of faith in certificate CA's and i feel that the reason that warnings over ssl are so severe is to spoon feed folks into the owned networks. I far more trust the way mozilla do their web of trust [2] but equally am aware that trolls live in the crowds. while ssh authorized_keys are more secure than passwords, i can't (and am hoping someone can point me to) find how to track failed logins as folks bruteforce their way in. yes it's orders of magnitude more difficult but then internet speed is now orders of magnitude faster, and OTP are looking more sensible every day [3] to me. i used to use windows live messenger and right near the end found that if you send someone a web link to a file filled with /dev/random called passwords.zip you would have some unknown ip connect and download it too. who then is doing that and i trust skype and it's peer2peer nonsense even less. who even knows you can TLS encrypt SIP ? there are many ways of encrypting email but this is not supported from one site to another, even TLS support is often lacking, and GPG the contents means that some folks you send email to cannot read it -- there is always a trade off between usability and security. i read in slashdot that there is a question mark over SELinux because it came from the NSA [4] but this is nonsense, as it is a means of securing processes not network connections. i find it difficult to believe that a backdoor in a locked cupboard in your house can somehow give access through the front door. This point you get wrong. SELinux implement the LSM API (in fact the LSM API was tailored to SELinux needs). It has hooks in nearly everything (file/directory access, process access and also sockets). One of the biggest concerns at the time of creation of the LSM API was rootkits hooking that functions. It's definitively a thread. I'm not saying that SELinux contains a backdoor (I for myself would have hidden it in the LSM part, not in SELinux because that would enable me to use it even if other LSMs are used). If you google for underhanded C contest you'll see that it's possible to hide malicious behaviour in plain sight. And if the kernel is compromised all other defenses mean nothing. (As I said, I don't want to spread fearbut that is something to consider imho). how far does trust need to be lost [5] before you start fabricating your own chips ? the complexity involved in chip fabs is immense and if bugs can slip through, what else can [6] ultimately a multi layer security approach is required, and security itself needs to be defined. You need an anchor from which you can establish trust. If there is a hardware backdoor you'll not be able to fix that problem with software. There is an excellent paper from Ken Thompson called Reflections on trusting trust that theorizes about the possibility of a trojanized compiler that injects malicous code and therefore makes code audits pointless. Security sadly is hard.. i like privacy so i have net curtains, i don't have a 3 foot thick titanium door with strengthened hinges. if someone looks in my windows, i can see them. either through the window or on cctv. security itself has to be defined so that risk can be managed. so many people buy the biggest lock they can find and forget the hinges. or leave the windows open. even then it doesn't help in terms of power failure or leaking water or gas mains exploding next door (i.e. the definition of security in the sense of safety) to some security means RAID, to
Re: [gentoo-user] Internet security.
On Mon, Sep 09, 2013 at 04:30:31PM +0100, thegeezer wrote: i read in slashdot that there is a question mark over SELinux because it came from the NSA [4] but this is nonsense, as it is a means of securing processes not network connections. i find it difficult to believe that a backdoor in a locked cupboard in your house can somehow give access through the front door. This point you get wrong. SELinux implement the LSM API (in fact the LSM API was tailored to SELinux needs). It has hooks in nearly everything (file/directory access, process access and also sockets). One of the biggest concerns at the time of creation of the LSM API was rootkits hooking that functions. It's definitively a thread. I'm not saying that SELinux contains a backdoor (I for myself would have hidden it in the LSM part, not in SELinux because that would enable me to use it even if other LSMs are used). If you google for underhanded C contest you'll see that it's possible to hide malicious behaviour in plain sight. And if the kernel is compromised all other defenses mean nothing. (As I said, I don't want to spread fearbut that is something to consider imho). Interesting, I didn't realise LSM provisioned hooks for SELinux - thought it it was more modular (and less 'shoehorned') than that. I need to go read about that some more now You can start here: http://www.freetechbooks.com/efiles/selinuxnotebook/The_SELinux_Notebook_The_Foundations_3rd_Edition.pdf for a general overview (page 64ff has a list of the hooks). Other than that http://www.kroah.com/linux/talks/ols_2002_lsm_paper/lsm.pdf and http://www.nsa.gov/research/_files/publications/implementing_selinux.pdf may be of interest (though both are quite old). WKR Hinnerk signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Internet security.
i read in slashdot that there is a question mark over SELinux because it came from the NSA [4] but this is nonsense, as it is a means of securing processes not network connections. i find it difficult to believe that a backdoor in a locked cupboard in your house can somehow give access through the front door. This point you get wrong. SELinux implement the LSM API (in fact the LSM API was tailored to SELinux needs). It has hooks in nearly everything (file/directory access, process access and also sockets). One of the biggest concerns at the time of creation of the LSM API was rootkits hooking that functions. It's definitively a thread. I'm not saying that SELinux contains a backdoor (I for myself would have hidden it in the LSM part, not in SELinux because that would enable me to use it even if other LSMs are used). If you google for underhanded C contest you'll see that it's possible to hide malicious behaviour in plain sight. And if the kernel is compromised all other defenses mean nothing. (As I said, I don't want to spread fearbut that is something to consider imho). Interesting, I didn't realise LSM provisioned hooks for SELinux - thought it it was more modular (and less 'shoehorned') than that. I need to go read about that some more now
Re: [gentoo-user] Internet security.
Dale wrote: Someone found this and sent it to me. http://news.yahoo.com/internet-experts-want-security-revamp-nsa-revelations-020838711--sector.html SNIP Am I right on this, wrong or somewhere in the middle? Dale :-) :-) I got this in my email today. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/one-key-rule-them-all-threats-against-service-provider-private-encryption-keys It seems, I may be wrong on this tho, that some changes are being made. While there is a lot of info there, it also seems that each site has one key and once you have that one key, you can then handle the whole sites encryption. Example: Google, Facebook, a bank, the EFF site or whatever. It seems we are back to face to face and even that isn't a sure thing. I'm still reading some of the other posts. It seems this is a mess with no real sure answer since it all depends on a lot of other things. Mostly we don't know for sure what information the spy folks have and what is compromised and what is not. sighs Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!
Re: [gentoo-user] Internet security.
On 09/09/2013 05:04 PM, Hinnerk van Bruinehsen wrote: On Mon, Sep 09, 2013 at 04:30:31PM +0100, thegeezer wrote: Interesting, I didn't realise LSM provisioned hooks for SELinux - thought it it was more modular (and less 'shoehorned') than that. I need to go read about that some more now You can start here: http://www.freetechbooks.com/efiles/selinuxnotebook/The_SELinux_Notebook_The_Foundations_3rd_Edition.pdf for a general overview (page 64ff has a list of the hooks). Other than that http://www.kroah.com/linux/talks/ols_2002_lsm_paper/lsm.pdf and http://www.nsa.gov/research/_files/publications/implementing_selinux.pdf may be of interest (though both are quite old). WKR Hinnerk thanks muchly :)
Re: [gentoo-user] Internet security.
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 09/09/2013 01:36 PM, Pavel Volkov wrote: I noticed there's another GLEP which eliminates the mirror problem: http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0058.html It's marked as accepted. I hope they'll implement it in reasonable time. This is the latest news; not much there unfortunately: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/87099 -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2.0.20 (GNU/Linux) iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJSLgqfAAoJEBxJck0inpOiNCgP/jkRSRr1P1HZbsqNicwyTusQ CZek3G1Lii31hOZbcauhvdrTL0exmVw9Z2/Mc1c2CxeEa3DhX4WXSxuA2bHo29Ba v2AFeFDFtS8PYEolb+MvN/AEk/urAxEz4kSVGFBOpin2y4FvjuKoQsFfho4VSaQ5 YxrCBkUKz2wMwQFtC80Kof8hbDpKJjVIJ1BsDbDplaUQl5hV9u4SmCQKBzl7JPzO v45bdwNjDJcPneVS0N/BByY6zaP+9FcpA27wgkbmwbvGYn3/KWSEKCsaaoifV/kv xq8BD9ZgRn9uWnoeov3fy8D/CBdZKsIdckD61lgeChmWqJmzPrXQd1hzu5j6uBdx y+UXE1Jp2b0Eg97ybVhne3kHsSyODJUo+bSTdjr85SNX3dVACQTrGC4WDFWyF6iW xG8joyT7Ufg6KBYpdM9MRxhYEU3CJg8KPVu4PN+No+q/Y2/e4cmDLBQqroDIDqA0 eQq/alQYXFxuuiq6geWDUCviCjfVauj+yWHKdGThX13rfyD6eyjlzgNSG1dUy5pS 0xmxhoCkpT3hK+o05+Fy66+Ex98n+KL4ImSztcnzT3DbAHbHoxRFL6P/vu2PdvmL Ys+DGqxJe/lRIzLnMeLf4Lk1ablunD7VJK4c6StvzdEhpzlRal7pPSv9wDNWSQZW jIUMsw6UJ5wD4dyqmEO4 =SbM7 -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [gentoo-user] Internet security.
On Monday 09 Sep 2013 14:42:28 Michael Orlitzky wrote: On 09/09/2013 01:28 AM, Mick wrote: Are you saying that 2048 RSA keys are no good anymore? They're probably fine, but when you're making them yourself, the extra bits are free. I would assume that the NSA can crack 1024-bit RSA[1], so why not jump to 4096 so you don't have to do this again in a few years? Right, but my router won't work with keys larger than 2048 and its admin GUI is controlled with 1024-bit public certificate. -- Regards, Mick signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-user] Internet security.
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 09/09/2013 02:07 PM, Mick wrote: On Monday 09 Sep 2013 14:42:28 Michael Orlitzky wrote: On 09/09/2013 01:28 AM, Mick wrote: Are you saying that 2048 RSA keys are no good anymore? They're probably fine, but when you're making them yourself, the extra bits are free. I would assume that the NSA can crack 1024-bit RSA[1], so why not jump to 4096 so you don't have to do this again in a few years? Right, but my router won't work with keys larger than 2048 and its admin GUI is controlled with 1024-bit public certificate. How often do you need to admin the router? Just do it from home (i.e. on the LAN side). -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2.0.20 (GNU/Linux) iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJSLiCIAAoJEBxJck0inpOiOxUQAKLD/ZpyhmdbyKYhw8git9A9 omPhNJPrIiRFNiw2uS9RrdRTqNaoAQyzRy8QkyfQK5MxYqSR7Xf3YUFv/fNXiahS pT3wSi9OVmaJQ7p5yHkmEdPTp30nhg53kFFeZ6h2Qd1BQ9GmzCoq5ajPavLoIreF DMjpLAsE3fY+1JcMe1qbyqfrAGrfpVrh2h5VdMneIFe2t8/yRQKX5F/z6JWnb8/V pdHQfFkybnJOiul1aLy/C/wKKyHVcrFvpM8QwhfGuDVY/q9h9gg99QN/5KqtahfJ jAuzaygTcSHsYfxNzf83ik0O25RR7UJ/dW4YGbK+PCb11RQZ3i/scxkuW3y11DGS iFMT9bQAP8InqUi8lWawu5fNwJBGlMgbHIYbkzpd/9U2YSQBbjJJgyOczsLcL8cC S8F9i8LqhRW3w6IczSGq6rt51gFgSVpBNaysJprq95Ei3/ZoAZY/jcpKAZhlV0wS 3xRCkiNBjPcyTHuSV5Z4QzgLB77EtO8fdV6vIBshY5zdX1jXFA8n5jKgb9tmTCKQ Eu6c1VvmJ4sIS437UgVcMVs7c08rp5qI3BhM1uKVuD/PIuQkaTnT6MZ57+AsvCjc hQ+tKaDhrnxY1aHkSwimtKKZKTZxmpi6TuMC+kxE9Ytl6/Br5IJhg0QcqZAUY06W A6X/s6n7XYboLXBiBg4c =N9w5 -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [gentoo-user] Internet security.
On Monday 09 September 2013 10:00:25 Michael Orlitzky wrote: No. There's a GLEP for some of these issues: https://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0057.html The relevant part is, ...any non-Gentoo controlled rsync mirror can modify executable code; as much of this code is per default run as root a malicious mirror could compromise hundreds of systems per day - if cloaked well enough, such an attack could run for weeks before being noticed. I noticed there's another GLEP which eliminates the mirror problem: http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0058.html It's marked as accepted. I hope they'll implement it in reasonable time. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-user] Internet security.
On Monday 09 Sep 2013 20:24:56 Michael Orlitzky wrote: On 09/09/2013 02:07 PM, Mick wrote: On Monday 09 Sep 2013 14:42:28 Michael Orlitzky wrote: On 09/09/2013 01:28 AM, Mick wrote: Are you saying that 2048 RSA keys are no good anymore? They're probably fine, but when you're making them yourself, the extra bits are free. I would assume that the NSA can crack 1024-bit RSA[1], so why not jump to 4096 so you don't have to do this again in a few years? Right, but my router won't work with keys larger than 2048 and its admin GUI is controlled with 1024-bit public certificate. How often do you need to admin the router? Just do it from home (i.e. on the LAN side). Yes, that's how I do it, or I VPN into the LAN from the outside if there is some emergency. However, the VPN SSL keys can't be any larger that 2048-bit. -- Regards, Mick signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-user] Internet security.
On 09/08/2013 09:33 PM, Dale wrote: Someone found this and sent it to me. http://news.yahoo.com/internet-experts-want-security-revamp-nsa-revelations-020838711--sector.html I'm not to concerned about the political aspect of this but do have to wonder what this means when we use sites that are supposed to be secure and use HTTPS. From reading that, it seems that even URLs with HTTPS are not secure. Is it reasonable to expect that even connections between say me and my bank are not really secure? The CA infrastructure was never secure. It exists to transfer money away from website owners and into the bank accounts of the CAs and browser makers. Security may be one of their goals, but it's certainly not the motivating one. To avoid a tirade here, I've already written about this: [1] http://michael.orlitzky.com/articles/in_defense_of_self-signed_certificates.php [2] http://michael.orlitzky.com/articles/why_im_against_ca-signed_certificates.php Warning: they're highly ranty, and mostly preach to the choir in that I don't give a ton of background. The tl;dr is, use a 4096-bit self signed certificate combined with pinning. It's not perfect, but it's as good as it gets unless you plan to make a trip to each website's datacenter in person.
Re: [gentoo-user] Internet security.
On Monday 09 Sep 2013 03:05:57 Michael Orlitzky wrote: On 09/08/2013 09:33 PM, Dale wrote: Someone found this and sent it to me. http://news.yahoo.com/internet-experts-want-security-revamp-nsa-revelatio ns-020838711--sector.html I'm not to concerned about the political aspect of this but do have to wonder what this means when we use sites that are supposed to be secure and use HTTPS. From reading that, it seems that even URLs with HTTPS are not secure. Is it reasonable to expect that even connections between say me and my bank are not really secure? The CA infrastructure was never secure. It exists to transfer money away from website owners and into the bank accounts of the CAs and browser makers. Security may be one of their goals, but it's certainly not the motivating one. To avoid a tirade here, I've already written about this: [1] http://michael.orlitzky.com/articles/in_defense_of_self-signed_certificates .php [2] http://michael.orlitzky.com/articles/why_im_against_ca-signed_certificates. php Warning: they're highly ranty, and mostly preach to the choir in that I don't give a ton of background. The tl;dr is, use a 4096-bit self signed certificate combined with pinning. It's not perfect, but it's as good as it gets unless you plan to make a trip to each website's datacenter in person. Are you saying that 2048 RSA keys are no good anymore? -- Regards, Mick signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-user] Internet security.
On Monday 09 Sep 2013 02:33:48 Dale wrote: Someone found this and sent it to me. http://news.yahoo.com/internet-experts-want-security-revamp-nsa-revelations -020838711--sector.html I'm not to concerned about the political aspect of this but do have to wonder what this means when we use sites that are supposed to be secure and use HTTPS. From reading that, it seems that even URLs with HTTPS are not secure. Is it reasonable to expect that even connections between say me and my bank are not really secure? Also, it seems there are people that want to work on fixing this and leave out any Government workers. Given my understanding of this, that could be a very wise move. From that article, I gather that the tools used were compromised before it was even finished. Is there enough support, enough geeks and nerds basically, to do this sort of work independently? I suspect there are enough Linux geeks out there to handle this and then figure out how to make it work on other OSs. I use the words geek and nerd in a complimentary way. I consider myself a bit of a geek as well. :-D One of many reasons I use Linux is security. I always felt pretty secure but if that article is accurate, then the OS really doesn't matter much when just reaching out and grabbing data between two puters over the internet. I may be secure at my keyboard but once it hits the modem and leaves, it can be grabbed and read if they want to even when using HTTPS. Right? This is not Gentoo specific but as most know, Gentoo is all I use anyway. I don't know of any other place to ask that I subscribe too. I figure I would get a no comment out of the Government types. ROFL Plus, there are some folks on here that know a LOT about this sort of stuff too. Again, I don't want a lot of political stuff on this but more of the technical side of, is that article accurate, can it be fixed and can we be secure regardless of OS. It seems to me that when you break HTTPS, you got it beat already. Am I right on this, wrong or somewhere in the middle? Dale :-) :-) As far as I know the NSA has cracked elliptic curve algorithms and earlier SSL versions. Not that you would suspect this from their peddling of it here :-p http://www.nsa.gov/business/programs/elliptic_curve.shtml Latest TLS v1.2 *should* be OK, but with the advent of quantum computing who can tell if science fiction decryption capabilities have become reality for state actors. Looking at this, you can see that loads of websites out there are not using strong enough encryption, so even if it worked quantum computing may be an overkill for many https implementations today: https://www.trustworthyinternet.org/ssl-pulse/ -- Regards, Mick signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
