Re: SHA-3 Round 1: Buffer Overflows
Aloha! Ian G wrote: However I think it is not really efficient at this stage to insist on secure programming for submission implementations. For the simple reason that there are 42 submissions, and 41 of those will be thrown away, more or less. There isn't much point in making the 41 secure; better off to save the energy until the one is found. Then concentrate the energy, no? I would like to humbly disagree. In case of MD6 the fix meant that a bugger had to be doubled in size (according to the Fortify blog). This means that the memory footprint and thus its applicability for embedded platforms was (somewhat) effected. That is, secure implementations might have different requirements than what mighty have been stated, and we want to select an algorithm based on the requirements for a secure implementation, right? -- Med vänlig hälsning, Yours Joachim Strömbergson - Alltid i harmonisk svängning. Kryptoblog - IT-säkerhet på svenska http://www.strombergson.com/kryptoblog - The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe cryptography to majord...@metzdowd.com
Re: SHA-3 Round 1: Buffer Overflows
On Feb 24, 2009, at 6:22 AM, Joachim Strömbergson wrote: Aloha! Ian G wrote: However I think it is not really efficient at this stage to insist on secure programming for submission implementations. For the simple reason that there are 42 submissions, and 41 of those will be thrown away, more or less. There isn't much point in making the 41 secure; better off to save the energy until the one is found. Then concentrate the energy, no? I would like to humbly disagree. In case of MD6 the fix meant that a bugger had to be doubled in size (according to the Fortify blog). This means that the memory footprint and thus its applicability for embedded platforms was (somewhat) effected. That is, secure implementations might have different requirements than what mighty have been stated, and we want to select an algorithm based on the requirements for a secure implementation, right? Two aspects of this conversation. 1) This algorithm is designed to be parallelized. This is a significant feat. C is a language where parallelization is possible, but fraught with peril. We have to look past the buffer overflow to the motivation of the complexity. 2) This algorithm -can- be implemented with a small footprint -if- parallelization is not intended. If this algorithm could not be minimized then this would be a significant issue, but this is not the case. I would love this algorithm to be implemented in an implicitly parallel language like Fortress. http://projectfortress.sun.com/Projects/Community Jim - The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe cryptography to majord...@metzdowd.com
Re: SHA-3 Round 1: Buffer Overflows
On 22/2/09 23:09, R.A. Hettinga wrote: http://blog.fortify.com/blog/fortify/2009/02/20/SHA-3-Round-1 This just emphasizes what we already knew about C, even the most careful, security conscious developer messes up memory management. No controversy there. Some of you are saying, so what? These are reference implementations and this is only Round 1. There are a few problems with that thought. Reference implementations don't disappear, they serve as a starting point for future implementations or are used directly. A bug in the RSA reference implementation was responsible for vulnerabilities in OpenSSL and two seperate SSH implementations. They can also be used to design hardware implementations, using buffer sizes to decide how much silicon should be used. It is certainly appreciated that work is put in to improve the implementations during the competition (my group did something similar for the Java parts of AES, so I know how much work it can be). However I think it is not really efficient at this stage to insist on secure programming for submission implementations. For the simple reason that there are 42 submissions, and 41 of those will be thrown away, more or less. There isn't much point in making the 41 secure; better off to save the energy until the one is found. Then concentrate the energy, no? iang - The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe cryptography to majord...@metzdowd.com
Re: SHA-3 Round 1: Buffer Overflows
This just emphasizes what we already knew about C, even the most careful, security conscious developer messes up memory management. However I think it is not really efficient at this stage to insist on secure programming for submission implementations. For the simple reason that there are 42 submissions, and 41 of those will be thrown away, more or less. There isn't much point in making the 41 secure; better off to save the energy until the one is found. Then concentrate the energy, no? Or stop using languages which encourage little oopsies like that. At the least, make it a standard practice to mock those who use C but don't use memory-safe libraries and diagnostic tools. Regards, SRF -- Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnoscet. -- Arnaud-Amaury, 1209 - The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe cryptography to majord...@metzdowd.com
