You cannot just KISS, not with encryption, this is the point. You cannot just apply AES to the stream. How do you plan to agree on the keys used for encryption ? Use the VNC password ? I think not, you have not enough entropy in a normal password). How do you plan to exchange the keys in a safe way (remember this are the keys used to encrypt the AES tunnel, so you don't have encryption in place). Now let's assume you get one / some random 128 (or more) bits key(s) and manage to exchange them somehow securely (let's say you go to each host and remote with floppies). How do you plan to make the authentication ? Just encrypt the streams and leave the remote<->host trying to find each other like deaf bats ? What if an attacker records and plays back the stream at a later time ? And this is the simple part, to put all the pieces together. There are a lot of design problems to be solved BEFORE you start writing ONE line of code. But it is _very_ hard to write secure code, even if you have a very good and complete algorithm. Many trusted programs (like apache, openssh) had at least one big remote buffer overflow last year. And we are talking about software using well known algorithms, not some one week old inventions, with very good track record for security. It is _extremely_ unlikely to invent and to implement something even remotely secure as openssh (which is not bulletproof) in one year, as a plugin for vnc. Sometimes it is better to know that you have no security/encryption than to rely on bad security/encryption. And you will _not_ have good security/encryption as an afterthought for vnc (not that I don't trust the vnc programmers).
Friday, February 14, 2003, 14:37:03, Joseph wrote: JEM> You could take a look at bitvise's SSH server (www.winsshd.com) JEM> It is not free, in any sense of the word, but it is a Windows SSH server. JEM> Although I would add my own opinion that for the mass "market", ssh JEM> tunneling isn't a good solution. For us geeks who use SSH tunneling for JEM> everything else, it's just peachy, but I can't see accountants and sales JEM> people getting their minds around it (nor should they have to). JEM> K.I.S.S. JEM> I would think applying AES directly to the stream in the VNC client and JEM> server would be the way to go. JEM> (but alas, I haven't the skillset required to add it myself) JEM> Tschuess! _______________________________________________ VNC-List mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.realvnc.com/mailman/listinfo/vnc-list
