But they care very much if Cisco AnyConnect (or any other
OpenSSL using program they may need) stops working or
becomes insecure because the OpenSSL team is breaking
stuff just because it is not needed in their own handful
of example uses.
And while ordinary people may not know or care, they will
be deeply affected by the increase in undiscovered
vulnerabilities if the white hat research community stops
supporting OpenSSL by researching its code more deeply
than any other crypto library. It is already bad enough
that no code review made before the giant reformat
provides much insight into the current code, because it
is virtually impossible to independently review the mega-
patch that mixed reformatting and actual code changes.
Fundamentally, appealing to what "ordinary users" care
about in the way you just did is an appeal to stupidity.
Ordinary users don't know how the innards of OpenSSL
affect their lives, as was so clearly seen when the first
a lot of them heard about OpenSSL was Heartbleed and the
resulting "gut reactions" was to say that OpenSSL must be
a fundamentally bad thing (spurred along by mass media
describing Heartbleed as a "virus"). Or think about all
the people confusing the Android stagefreight multimedia
library with the recently discovered vulnerabilities in
that same library.
Note that I am not saying ordinary users are stupid,
they just don't know a lot of things about our
profession, as they don't know much about each others
professions either. This is the fundamental principle
of specialization ever since the concept of professions
was invented millennia ago.
On 23/11/2015 17:05, Short, Todd wrote:
I suspect that most “users” of OpenSSL are doing it indirectly through
other applications that use TLS (or crypto) functionality. Example:
the Cisco AnyConnect client is reportedly one of the most installed
pieces of software regardless of platform; it uses OpenSSL for TLS.
Taking those indirect users into account, they don’t care about the
research or advanced uses of OpenSSL; they just want to connect
securely to their corporate network.
On Nov 20, 2015, at 9:09 PM, Peter Waltenberg <pwal...@au1.ibm.com
<mailto:pwal...@au1.ibm.com>> wrote:
Quite reasonable except.
I'm not sure you have majority and minority the right way around. My
guess would be that the majority of OpenSSL users are libcrypto.
consumers rather than SSL/TLS consumers.
A point several of us have been trying to get through for some time.
-----"openssl-dev" <openssl-dev-boun...@openssl.org
<mailto:openssl-dev-boun...@openssl.org>> wrote: -----
To: "openssl-...@openssl.org <mailto:openssl-...@openssl.org>"
<openssl-...@openssl.org <mailto:openssl-...@openssl.org>>
From: "Short, Todd"
Sent by: "openssl-dev"
Date: 11/21/2015 08:28AM
Cc: "openssl-users@openssl.org <mailto:openssl-users@openssl.org>"
<openssl-users@openssl.org <mailto:openssl-users@openssl.org>>
Subject: Re: [openssl-dev] [openssl-users] Removing obsolete crypto
from OpenSSL 1.1 - seeking feedback
While I am all for simplicity, I also think that removing
functionality is a “bad idea”.
To reduce the support burden, deprecate the ciphers:
1. Under support, indicate that these ciphers will no longer receive
fixes.
2. Remove any assembly implementations
3. Disable them by default.
I suggest following the 80/20 rule (sometimes the 95/5 rule):
Those “who care” (the minority) about the ciphers can re-enable them
and rebuild the library.
Those “who don’t care” (the majority) about the ciphers, should get
the functionality that most people care about, basically SSL/TLS
connectivity.
On Nov 18, 2015, at 1:52 PM, Blumenthal, Uri - 0553 - MITLL
<u...@ll.mit.edu <mailto:u...@ll.mit.edu>> wrote:
On 11/18/15, 12:12 , "openssl-dev on behalf of Benjamin Kaduk"
<openssl-dev-boun...@openssl.org
<mailto:openssl-dev-boun...@openssl.org> on behalf of
bka...@akamai.com <mailto:bka...@akamai.com>> wrote:
On 11/18/2015 07:05 AM, Hubert Kario wrote:
So, a full CAdES-A, XAdES-A or PAdES-A implementation _needs_ to
support
both relatively modern TLS with user certificates, preferably the
newest
cryptosystems and hashes as well as the oldest ones that were
standardised and used.
That means that old algorithms MUST remain in OpenSSL as supported
functionality. It may require linking to a specific library to
make the
EVP* with old ciphers, MACs, etc. work, but they MUST NOT be removed
from it completely, definitely not before at least 50 years _after_
they
became obsolete and broken.
There seems to be a logical leap between these two paragraphs. Why is
it necessary that OpenSSL be the only cryptographic library used by
CAdES-A/etc. implementations?
Because it used to be the only real game in town, and *people learned to
rely upon it*.
Is it in fact even necessary that only a
single version of a single cryptographic library be used for such
software?
No, of course not. But after letting people depend on this “single
cryptographic library” for many years, telling them “too bad” isn’t very
nice.
While OpenSSL may try to be a general-purpose crypto library,
when a software has stringent or unusual crypto requirements, it seems
reasonable that such a software may need to involve unusual
implementations.
The requirements did not change. What changed was the maintainers
expressing their desire to stop supporting some of them.
I do not believe that OpenSSL has promised anywhere that it will
support
this sort of use case.
Implicitly, by providing that kind of service for so long. And
explicitly,
as pointed out by Hubert:
From the main web page of project:
The OpenSSL Project is a collaborative effort to develop a robust,
commercial-grade, *full-featured*, and Open Source toolkit
implementing the Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Secure Sockets
Layer (SSL) protocols as well as a full-strength *general purpose*
*cryptography library* .
Enjoy
Jakob
--
Jakob Bohm, CIO, Partner, WiseMo A/S. https://www.wisemo.com
Transformervej 29, 2860 Søborg, Denmark. Direct +45 31 13 16 10
This public discussion message is non-binding and may contain errors.
WiseMo - Remote Service Management for PCs, Phones and Embedded
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