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The real WTF is that https://www.libressl.org/ produces "Firefox can’t establish a connection to the server at www.libressl.org." They aren't even eating their own dog food.

Thank you for answering my question.

My understanding is that LibreSSL was intended to be a drop-in replacement for OpenSSL. The LibreSSL guys grumbled a lot about some of the quirks in the OpenSSL API, but they had to implement the same API to be a drop-in replacement. Also writing this sort of software can be tricky to get right, and for all its faults OpenSSL does have a lot of stuff done right. Overall I think forking was a sane choice.

Within the limits of my own knowledge, and what I know about OpenSSL and LibreSSL, I agree with this blog posting. And note that it is now 2016 and LibreSSL is available for Linux and other major platforms. (And it's standard on Mac OS X!)

I do not however believe LibreSSL in its current form goes far enough to really be effective as a "secure" alternative to OpenSSL in my view.

If you have the expertise to understand these issues, you might want to start your own project that goes further than LibreSSL. Start by making the API more sane.

I need TLS-SRP support. I need heartbeat to work as designed with DTLS.

I am not qualified to comment upon any of this.

I need native compatibility with a number of platforms.

I'm curious: what platforms are you missing from this list?

http://www.libressl.org/releases.html

• Linux (kernel 3.17 or later preferred)
• FreeBSD (tested with 9.2 and later)
• NetBSD (7.0 and later preferred)
• HP-UX (11i)
• Solaris (11 and later preferred)
• Mac OS X (tested with 10.8 and later)
• AIX (5.3 and later)
• Microsoft Windows (XP or higher, x86 and x64)
• Wine (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Builds with Visual Studio 2013 or newer, Mingw-w64 and Cygwin

P.S. I used HTML markup to get a bulleted list (the <ul> tag), but it doesn't display properly for me. Is there a trick to getting a bulleted list on Slashdot?

If computer security is what you want, then a better option is just to use OpenBSD. Unlike most other software projects, including nearly all Linux distros, the OpenBSD developers put security first. Putting security first has the side effect of making quality and robustness high priorities, too, since they all go hand-in-hand. You can't get one without the others. The OpenBSD devs do strenuous reviews of not only their own code, but that of code developed by other projects. They will even fork other projects when those projects don't live up to the OpenBSD standard of security and quality. LibreSSL is an example of this. So if computer security is what you're after, use OpenBSD. It's the only sensible choice.

I'm all for the BSDs, as they do have superior code quality compared to Linux + GNU (having written for both, although it's just my subjective opinion). That said, OpenBSD is the one I'm the least a fan of - it has some very useful extra features, and the devs really do put forth the work. However, only on the base, and I can't stress that enough. OpenBSD's base is suprisingly well developed, and you can run a small router or printer manager or something with it, sure. However, as soon as you want more (such as an advanced webserver, a personal workstation, etc.), you start to rely on the ports more, and OpenBSD's tend to lag a little bit, which makes you vulnerable to application exploits. FreeBSD still gives you really strong security, but also a very up to date ports tree, as well as the MAC framework (mandatory access control, which allows you to set fine grained policies). Plus, I don't think OpenBSD has Capsicum (a sandboxing daemon), though it's been a while since I've checked the status on that.

OpenBSD is a fine project, but it's hardly "the only sensible choice". I'd recommend checking out FreeBSD if anyone's interested, and to exercise prudence as always :-)

If computer security is what you want, then a better option is just to use OpenBSD. Unlike most other software projects, including nearly all Linux distros, the OpenBSD developers put security first. Putting security first has the side effect of making quality and robustness high priorities, too, since they all go hand-in-hand. You can't get one without the others. The OpenBSD devs do strenuous reviews of not only their own code, but that of code developed by other projects. They will even fork other projects when those projects don't live up to the OpenBSD standard of security and quality. LibreSSL is an example of this. So if computer security is what you're after, use OpenBSD. It's the only sensible choice.

http://openbsd.org/
http://www.openiked.org/
http://www.libressl.org/

Canada
Germany

I use OpenBSD because it's simple, and they continually improve the _existing_ software.

Existing software like LibreSSL? (OpenBSD rewrite of OpenSSL)
Or OpenSMTPD? (OpenBSD rewrite of an MTA)
Or maybe something simpler, like doas(1)? (OpenBSD rewrite of sudo)

Lots of newly-written software in OpenBSD. These are only three examples i could readily think of, and they're all fairly recent.

I guess your notion that NetBSD is bleeding edge is based on similar bizarre views.

Well, part of that rewriting may be due to their (OpenBSD's) rejection of the GPL. Well, not the examples above, but maybe some other software.

I use OpenBSD because it's simple, and they continually improve the _existing_ software.

Existing software like LibreSSL? (OpenBSD rewrite of OpenSSL)
Or OpenSMTPD? (OpenBSD rewrite of an MTA)
Or maybe something simpler, like doas(1)? (OpenBSD rewrite of sudo)

Lots of newly-written software in OpenBSD. These are only three examples i could readily think of, and they're all fairly recent.

I guess your notion that NetBSD is bleeding edge is based on similar bizarre views.

Jesus Christ! Do we have to explain the basics to you?!

Security by obscurity is bunk. You should know this.

You have heard about the Cathedral and the Bazaar, right?

Some of the most secure things are out in the open, for everyone to see.

OpenBSD and LibreSSL and OpenSSH are some of the most secure, bug-free software ever developed, and their code is out in the open. They're so secure because they're developed openly!

OpenSSL problems are due to proprietary company controlling the project for certain proprietary interests.

Not really, OpenSSL is open-source, anyone can modify it.

The problem is the complete shittyness of the OpenSSL code.

Here's 49 pages of the stupidities that the LibreSSL people ( http://www.libressl.org/ ) found while going through the OpenSSL code: http://opensslrampage.org/

Step One
Step Two

That's patching it the smart way.

If you really care about stuff like "a free and unrestricted internet", and want to ensure the safety and future of "free human communication", then just donate to OpenBSD. You'll be supporting a group of people who take security very seriously (their software is among the most secure there is), who know all about freedom (their preferred software license is about as free as you can get), and who provide some of the most critical Internet communication software there is (OpenSSH, LibreSSL, and OpenSMTPD). Making a donation to OpenBSD is a great way to meet the criteria that you set forth.

What is this, 1980? There's no Internet that everybody's using?

Look, it's not 1980. It's 2015. You don't have to "keep it local" in order to see how your money is being used.

Donate to OpenBSD, and you'll be able to follow along as their already-superb software continues to get even better and better. Not only would you be supporting the development of a free and extraordinarily secure operating system, but the people responsible for OpenBSD are also responsible for tremendously important software like OpenSSH and LibreSSL. This is some of the most important open source software around. Since it's open source, we can all inspect its code to see what they're doing with our donations.

The OpenBSD developers don't fuck around. These are serious people, creating seriously secure, reliable and useful open source software products. Your donation to them doesn't just help a few people in your vicinity. Your contributions to OpenBSD helps out almost the entire world. The software they work on is just that damn important!

So do the only sensible thing there is to do: donate to OpenBSD.

For crying out loud, the first step in creating any kind of a secure software environment is to use OpenBSD.

OpenBSD takes security more seriously than pretty much every other OS out there. Security isn't an afterthought with OpenBSD; security is the primary focus of its developers. Its code is thoroughly reviewed, with the OpenBSD developers even forking and fixing external libraries when external code doesn't pass muster.

If you claim to take security seriously, then I think your only choice is to be using OpenBSD.

A team with leadship in the realm of secure software already did that, starting about 11 months ago. The OpenSSL code didn't just need audited, it need large swaths of code thrown in the trash, and code refactored for security, readability, and ease of debugging. And fixes made. Which is being done. http://www.libressl.org/

So would clients built using the SSL libraries from the (stripped-down, un-borked) version of SSL that the OpenBSD team recently did - LibreSSL - vulnerable as well?

http://www.libressl.org/

That site doesn't support SSL...

http://www.libressl.org/

OpenSSL was written by a bunch of monkeys who either didn't understand security, didn't give a shit about security, or were NSA agents pretending to be dumb and careless.

Their source code looks like a fucking regurgitated hairball, pages after pages of deeply nested spaghetti if/else that requires hours/days to scroll up and down, switch back and forth between files just to understand what a small section does. That makes it nearly impossible for people to provide patches because by the time they understand half of the code they are already burnt out and have lost interest.

Fuck OpenSSL, it is now nothing more than a project run by burnt out programmers who doesn't give a shit and will only add even more shit to it to earn a paycheck, and whatever "bugs" they fix, you can bet the NSA is still sitting on a pile of 10 years old bugs and exploits.

Switch to LibreSSL, simply because it is developed by people who have standards and care about reputation.

I saw the updated http://www.libressl.org/ page with details for the portable version.

Saw someone else did a speed test https://gist.github.com/bertjw...

and thought I would do the same

http://pastebin.com/SBVWPQmB

I'm not an expert but at this stage it appears

                                LibreSSL Speed as % of OpenSSL
type 16 bytes 64 bytes 256 bytes 1024 bytes 8192 bytes

Aes-128 cbc 152.40 152.34 152.66 59.87 59.49
Aes-192 cbc 159.14 158.30 158.25 60.78 60.49
Aes-256 cbc 166.15 166.91 167.14 64.48 64.51

Results -
LibreSSL about 50~60% faster for 256 size blocks or smaller
OpenSSL about 50~60% faster for 1024 size blocks or larger

Notes: To compile on Ubuntu need to use ./configure LDFLAGS=-lrt
There are posts about the same requirement on RH also.

Seems to me LibreSSL is the way to go, but I can also see why the corporations would just use it as a side-stream for hints on what to fix. They have enough resources to rewrite openSSL from the inside rather than the the LibreSSL tear-down approach.

I don't think companies really "have enough resources" to rewrite OpenSSL. The problem is that you can't just throw money at a project and have stuff happen. You need people to implement those changes. And we're still in the clutches of the software crisis.

The problem with OpenSSL is that it is really, really bad code. It's security code, which few people have the expertise to handle. It has an idiosyncratic style, which few people want to look at, it's so painful. And it is so littered with backwards compatibility hacks and defective functions that very few people can know whether it's doing something right. Even the OpenSSL people don't know what it's doing, given all the comments about OpenSSL functions that they're not using properly.

So, best of luck to the CII, trying to "improve" OpenSSL without getting rid of all its weirdness. I think the OpenBSD people are right, and they should just tear down everything and rebuild it.

FYI: LibreSSL is a fork of OpenSSL that started over a month ago.
http://www.libressl.org/ [libressl.org]

http://www.libressl.org/

seriously pumping openssl full of cash at this point is like buying new deck chairs for the titanic.

It does indeed appear to be OpenBSD only at present (from http://www.libressl.org/ ):

... and not really that multiplatform for future development, either, since it requires (as per the linked slide)

Modern C string capabilities (strl[cat,cpy]) asprintf etc.

None of the quoted functions are standard C and strl* are BSD-only - yay for GNU-BSD strn*/strl* string function wars :(

It's all nice and good practice that they want to use the best tools available to them on OpenBSD, but not caring for what's available on other platforms is not really how one does portability and *will* produce forks, regardless how much the LibreSSL authors want to 'discourage' it.

It does indeed appear to be OpenBSD only at present (from http://www.libressl.org/ ):

Multi OS support will happen once we have

        Flensed, refactored, rewritten, and fixed enough of the code so we have stable baseline that we trust and can be maintained/improved.
        The right Portability team in place.
        A Stable Commitment of Funding to support an increased development and porting effort.

We cannot write complex bug-free software. PERIOD. OpenSSL is not windows. Headlines about OpenSSL bugs are not such a common occurrence. One bug happened at the wrong time, wrong place. This could have happened even if the world had opted for a proprietary library for this critical role. The only difference is that there would have been somebody to sue. Big consolation.

New theories come out of IT faculties around the world at regular intervals, that promise, if strictly followed, the holy grail of bug-free software. All of them eventually prove non-effective.

The only concrete effect of all these tactics is that the job of the programmer becomes more tedious, less interesting. One thing I can tell you from direct experience is that, the lowest the level of interest of the programmer, the higher the possibility will be that bugs may slip into his or her code.

Actually, it's possible to remove all errors and imperfections, if you would be satisfied with being boring. That's one thing I got from Douglas Crockford's Programming Style and Your Brain. Sometimes, especially for security-related software, "boring" is exactly what you want.

Unfortunately, SSL is anything but boring. It's barely standardized, and it's prone to getting new features. But just because the standard is exciting, doesn't mean the code has to be exciting. The OpenSSL developers may have received $2,000 in donations last year, but they make money by consulting on OpenSSL. They have a perverse incentive to keep OpenSSL confusing and buggy. The efforts for the LibreSSL project show just how needlessly exciting the OpenSSL code base is.

To prevent the next Heartbleed, it's more productive to donate to LibreSSL.

What's the problem?

A lot of these people have shit colored glasses bolted to their skulls. Combine this with an irrational hate for anything corporate and there you go; petulant little office trolls emoting on Slashdot.

Theo et al. have and are publically seeking for both individual and corporate support for both the OpenBSD Foundation and LibreSSL, and are specifically seeking a "Stable Commitment of Funding."

Unlike some of the malcontents that haunt Slashdot, they actually spend their time writing open source code. As such, they are painfully aware that large scale open source work is not actually the exclusive product of self funding trust fund rebels.