..on Fri, Jul 26, 2013 at 03:42:02PM -0500, Francisco Ruiz wrote: > Scenario: you, Alice, realize you're under NSA surveillance. You need to > get a crucial bit of information to your friend Bob, right away. > You've been using PGP, but now you suspect the NSA may have installed a bug > on your machine. Your keystrokes are being recorded. > > What can you do? Use PassLok instead. > > I wrote PassLok with three guiding principles in mind: > 1. Absolutely nothing should be installed or even written in the computer. > Alice should be able to go to the local library or borrow someone else's > smartphone, and leave no traces behind. > 2. Best security available. No compromises. > 3. Graphical interface. Only one screen, as clean as possible. > > Therefore, PassLok is written entirely in javascript. Once you load the > page at https://passlok.site44.com (http://passlok.com redirects you > there), you can save the file and you have PassLok even offline. You can > view the source and convince yourself that it is not connecting with any > server. If you know some cryptography, you can see that it is using the > well-known SJCL routines for AES encryption/decryption and elliptic curve > functions. Since the elliptic curves implemented in the current version of > SJCL only go up to the 384-bit NIST curve, I added the 521-bit NIST curve > (equivalent to a 15000-bit RSA key in predicted security) so that PassLok > uses that as a default. Even at 521 bits, the public keys are small, as you > can see from my lock (public key) below. > > PassLok performs public-key cryptography using the Diffie-Hellman key > exchange rather than RSA, so you can use whatever secret key you want. > Hopefully something that is both very hard to guess and easy to remember, > so you never have to write it down. PassLok will help you to come up with a > strong key, but won't force you in any way. > > PassLok can sign and verify signatures, too (many PGP implementations, such > as Mailvelope, cannot), and can also include a second secret message under > a separate key, to beat the "rubberhose attack." If you are not sure about > the authenticity of something, PassLock can make a short ID that you can > read over the phone. All of it from a single screen. > > I want people to use PassLok and uncover any bugs it might still have, > before I move on to a Gmail plugin based on its engine. I believe it is > already very secure and easy to use by those who know a little > cryptography. Hopefully the metaphor used throughout PassLok, about locks > and keys rather than private/public key pairs, will also make it usable by > novices. > > I'll appreciate any feedback you can give me. The link is repeated at the > bottom.
I haven't given it an audit but so far it appears to be a very nice implementation. Congratulations. And yes, it passed the offline, locally hosted test ;) I feel clicking on the title 'Key / Lock Conbination' for instructions would baffle most people. The 'step by step instructions' page is good, but I think it could be more helpfully integrated. Perhaps you could have a drop-down menu for each use case, with instructions appearing as hints in each field. Again, great work and a great contribution! Cheers, -- Julian Oliver PGP B6E9FD9A http://julianoliver.com http://criticalengineering.org -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at [email protected] or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
