On Sat, Mar 10, 2018 at 07:19:11PM +0100, Marek Marczykowski-Górecki wrote:
> Is there any sensible way of installing OTS client securely? There is a
> chain of dependencies which are not packaged for neither Debian or
> Fedora (python-opentimestamps, bitcoinlib, pysha3, ...). And since pip
> rely only on https (so, integrity of its infrastructure), the only
> alternative is downloading sources manually, verifying its signature
> (after finding and verifying what key should really be used for that
> particular package), then installing it in /usr/local or such.

Yup, I agree that the dependencies are still a problem. That said, some of them
I could avoid, e.g. pysha3 is only needed if you want to verify an
ethereum-using timestamp, which is a niche case; I could make that optional.

Even python-bitcoinlib could be made optional I think. There also does exist a
python-bitcoinlib package for Debian buster (testing), although AFAIK not
Fedora.

> And even if I'd do all that (I gave up after two iterations), then I
> need to manually track updates for all those packages. Otherwise I risk
> exposing my development environment for yet another attack vector. Well,
> by installing ots client I do that anyway, but by not updating that
> stuff, I make things easier for the attacker, because he/she could use
> publicly known, already patched vulnerabilities.

Definitely an issue. You also have the problem that timestamping inherently
requires communication with the outside world - a Qubes-specific RPC "firewall"
could be a good idea here, as you suggest below.

> I have better use for my time...
> 
> I see two solutions for this problem:
> 1. Package all the dependencies for Fedora (preferred) and/or Debian.
> 2. Make a split-gpg-like integration so those possibly
> outdated/backdoored (pip install...) packages would run in separate VM
> (maybe even DispVM). 
> 
> I'm not sure about ots client interface, but the second approach may be
> not that hard to implement.

When you say "Fedora", what exact version do you need it for? I have clients
who need RPM packages for this anyway.

Also, what's the best infrastructure to provide for this? Like, on Ubuntu I
could provide packages via Launchpad, but I don't know if there's an equivalent
for Fedora.

-- 
https://petertodd.org 'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"qubes-devel" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/qubes-devel/20180310233950.GA6305%40savin.petertodd.org.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Reply via email to