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Current Crypto Trends with Bruce Schneier
Saint Aardvark writes "SecurityFocus has published an interview with Bruce Schneier. Fascinating stuff, especially the level-headed assessments of the NSA, spam and the impact of full disclosure: 'Q: Since most crypto protocols on the internet, such as SSL or SSH, uses public-keys to build a secure channel, wouldn't a unexpected public disclosure create a chaos on the internet ? A: No. Chaos is hard to create, even on the Internet. Here's an example. Go to Amazon.com. Buy a book without using SSL. Watch the total lack of chaos.'"
Pbhyq lbh vagebqhpr lbhefrys ?
V'z n frphevgl grpuabybtvfg. Zl pnerre unf orra n frevrf bs trarenyvmngvbaf. V fgnegrq jbexvat va pelcgbtencul: zngurzngvpny frphevgl. Gura V ernyvmrq gung nyy gur pelcgbtencul va gur jbeyq jba'g uryc vs gur pbzchgre vf vafrpher, naq nyy gur pbzchgre frphevgl jba'g uryc vs gur argjbex vf vafrpher. Fvapr gura, V unir orra pbapragengvat zber ba gur fbpvny naq rpbabzvp nfcrpgf bs frphevgl, ernyvmvat gung nyy gur grpuabybtl va gur jbeyq jba'g uryc vs gubfr nera'g qbar evtug.
Zber ba zl onpxtebhaq pna or sbhaq ba fpuarvre.pbz
AFN yvprafrq Pregvpbz'f RP cngragf sbe $25 zvyyvba ynfg lrne, naq erpragyl naabhaprq gur arj HF tbireazrag fgnaqneq sbe xrl nterrzrag naq qvtvgny fvtangherf, pnyyrq Fhvgr O. Vg hfrf Ryyvcgvp Pheir Qvssvr-Uryyzna (RPQU) naq Ryyvcgvp Pheir Zrarmrf-Dh-Inafgbar (RPZDI) sbe xrl nterrzrag, naq Ryyvcgvp Pheir Qvtvgny Fvtangher Nytbevguz (RPQFN) sbe fvtangher trarengvba/irevsvpngvba. Qb lbh guvax gung AFN vf cebzbgvat RPP onfrq pelcgb orpnhfr gurl pnaabg penpx EFN/QFN onfrq bar ?
V qb abg. V oryvrir gur AFN oryvrirf gung RPP vf fgebat. V jebgr nobhg RPP urer:
uggc://jjj.fpuarvre.pbz/pelcgb-tenz-9911.ug zy#Ryyv cgvpPheirChoyvp-XrlPelcgbtencul
Nygubhtu V jebgr gung va 1999, V nz fgvyy fxrcgvpny nobhg ryyvcgvp pheirf.
Be znlor whfg orpnhfr gurl pna penpx EFN/QFN gurl cersre gb cebgrpg HFohfvarff jvgu RPP (fhccbfrq gb or uneqre gb penpx)?
Jvgu fhssvpvrag xrl yratguf, nyy bs guvf vf hapenpxnoyr. V qba'g oryvrir gung gur AFN unf nal frperg zngurzngvpf gung gurl hfr gb oernx EFN/QFN be RPP.
Jbhyq n dhnaghz pbzchgre qb gur wbo ?
Va gurbel, lrf. Va cenpgvpr, jr unir ab vqrn ubj gb ohvyq bar gb qb vg. Znlor va svsgl lrnef. Be gjragl-svir.
Fbzr gvzr ntb lbh pb-nhguberq n cncre ba fbsgjner zbabcbyl evfxf. Jung nobhg pelcgb zbabcbyl? Qba'g lbh guvax gung univat whfg n pbhcyr bs choyvp-xrl nytbevguzf onfrq ba gur fnzr zngu ceboyrz pbhyq yrnq gb n pngnfgebcur vs penpxrq ?
Gur frphevgl nqinagntrf bs n pbzzba pelcgbtencuvp nytbevguz sne bhgjrvtu gur qvfnqinagntrf. V'ir jevggra nobhg gung nf jryy:
uggc://jjj.fpuarvre.pbz/pelcgb-tenz-9904.ugzy#qv ss rerag.
Jung jbhyq lbh qb vs lbh sbhaq n fbyhgvba gb gur snpgbevmngvba ceboyrz?
Nal pelcgbtencure, vs gurl sbhaq fbzrguvat fb fvtavsvpnag nf n fbyhgvba bs gur snpgbevmngvba, jbhyq choyvfu gurve erfhygf. Fhpu n qvfpbirel jbhyq yvxryl erfhyg va cebsbhaq punatrf va ubj jr ivrj ahzore gurbel, naq jbhyq or gur zngurzngvpny qvfpbirel bs gur qrpnqr...naq znlor rira zber vzcbegnag.
Fvapr zbfg pelcgb cebgbpbyf ba gur vagrearg, fhpu nf FFY be FFU, hfrf choyvp-xrlf gb ohvyq n frpher punaary, jbhyqa'g n harkcrpgrq choyvp qvfpybfher perngr n punbf ba gur vagrearg ?
Ab. Punbf vf uneq gb perngr, rira ba gur Vagrearg.
Urer'f na rknzcyr. Tb gb Nznmba.pbz. Ohl n obbx jvgubhg hfvat FFY. Jngpu gur gbgny ynpx bs punbf.
Va gur frphevgl pbzzhavgl gurer ner inevbhf jnlf bs guvaxvat nobhg ihyarenovyvgvrf qvfpybfher (choyvp-, shyy-, erfcbafvoyr-, ab-). Jung vf gur fvghngvba va gur pelcgb pbzzhavgl ? Jung glcr bs qvfpybfher cebprff vf gurer ?
Zbfg frphevgl cebsrffvbanyf oryvrir va shyy qvfpybfher, naq pelcgbtencuref ner ab rkprcgvba. Gur nqinaprzrag bs gur fpvrapr vf orfg freirq ol gur serr rkpunatr bs vqrnf.
Jul vf bsgra hfrq n zbarl-erjneqrq punyyratr gb irevsl n pelcgb nytbevguz?
Orpnhfr vg'f serr pbafhygvat jbex, naq zbarl vf na nggrzcg gb nqq fbzr svanapvny vapragvir. Zbfg bs gur gvzr vg'f n funz. Juvyr gurer ner fbzr yrtvgvzngr pbagrfgf, zbfg ner whfg nggrzcgf gb tnva choyvpvgl.
Erpragyl fbzr cncref nqqerffvat unfu shapgvbaf jrer choyvfurq, naq lbh fhttrfgrq ba lbhe oybt gung vg'f gvzr gb trg gb jbex ercynpvat FUN. Lbh jebgr: "Gur AVFG nyernql unf fgnaqneqf sbe ybatre -- naq uneqre gb oernx -- unfu shapgvbaf: FUN-224, FUN-256, FUN-384, naq FUN-512. Gurl'er nyernql tbireazrag fgnaqneqf, naq pna nyernql or hfrq. Guvf vf n tbbq fgbctnc, ohg V'q yvxr gb frr zber." Jul q
Is it just me, or does the interview read mostly like "Stop asking me dumb questions"?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
even within chaos, there may appear to be order...in fact, I think I'll order another beer.
rewriting history since 2109
http://www.schneier.com/blog
Sorry about that!
Carousel is a lie!
It's http://www.schneier.com/
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
Every posting in his cryptogram seems to be telling me the same thing - nothing anyone is doing is actually secure, and no currently proposed measures are going to help. So basically he's telling me to live in a shack in the woods like the Unabomber if I want security. Also he seems to be drifting more and more into political banter...and I don't consider him to be any more informed that the next blogger.
I am certainly no grammar Nazi--actually, English is my third language, so I am far from perfect. But for the love of God, could the people at Security Focus please try to do some rudimentary editing and proofreading? I don't mind typos, but some of their questions are so wrong that they are very hard to read and understand.
"Do you think that NSA is promoting ECC based crypto because they cannot crack RSA/DSA based one?"
What?
"Or maybe just because they can crack RSA/DSA they prefer to protect USbusiness with ECC (supposed to be harder to crack)?"
Huh?
"What about crypto monopoly? Don't you think that having just a couple of public-key algorithms based on the same math problem could lead to a catastrophe if cracked ?"
This doesn't follow any European-language grammar.
But the next question takes the cake:
"Why is often used a money-rewarded challenge to verify a crypto algorithm?"
I thoroughly recommend reading the linked articles. Some fascinating stuff (e.g. on why elliptic curve crypography is current considered secure and why this may not last).
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Somewhat unrelated to the above, but saw this article Bruce wrote for American Airlines magazine when he won 3rd place in the annual Road Warriors competetion. He's a pretty funny guy. I had no idea. My apologies to AA for pasting the below but it's prob better than having your webserver taken out back and shot.
"Bruce Schneier
Minneapolis, Minnesota
I had a free day on a business trip to Seoul, so I decided to do a bit of sightseeing. Yoseu, a random town at the end of a train line, seemed as good a place as any to explore, so I bought a round-trip ticket.
The market was still crowded even though it was dusk by the time my train arrived. I stopped in front of what looked to be a restaurant. On the floor in front of the store were water-filled pails with things inside. I recognized squid in one, oysters in another, and clams in a third. There were three others: orange bulbous things with puckers, long brown things with puckers, and long smooth white things that half floated and half sank. I assumed they were all alive.
The woman who sat behind this menagerie looked up at me. I pointed to the orange things, pointed to the brown things, pointed at the tables inside of the store, and smiled.
She smiled back, got up, and walked into the restaurant. I followed her.
There were four long tables, all empty. I sat down at the far table. The woman brought three orange things and three brown things and proceeded to clean them. She set two bowls of water out in front of her: a green one and a white one. She cut open the orange things and put the orange insides in the green bowl, and the orange outsides in the white bowl. Then she cut open the brown things and put the brown outsides in the green bowl with the orange insides, and the brown insides in the white bowl with the orange outsides. I didn't have the foggiest idea which bowl was for eating and which was for throwing away.
After she was finished, she started cutting up the orange insides and the brown outsides. All I could think at this point was: Please cook this. Whatever you do, please cook this. Then I noticed that there wasn't a stove anywhere.
She put the orange and brown things on a plate and set it in front of me. Then she gave me a bowl of hot sauce, a bowl of kimchi, and a cup of cold tea.
I looked at my plate. I didn't even know what phylum the stuff came from.
She then presented something to me with a flourish and a big smile. It was a fork. Well, I had to take it. I really didn't want it, but she'd probably had this fork for years, it was probably her only one, and I was probably the first American brave enough to eat there. I couldn't spoil it for her.
I took the fork and stabbed a brown thing. She was watching me as I put it in my mouth. It was chewy, but it tasted pretty good. I tried an orange thing. It wasn't as good. I smiled at her. She smiled back and went outside.
She poked her head in from time to time. Once she brought a friend. She told her something in Korean. Probably something like: "Look at that. I gave him the orange insides and the brown outsides, and he doesn't even know the difference."
I just smiled. What else could I do?
Chief Technical Officer, Counterpane Internet Security, Inc.
Age: 41"
Q: Since most crypto protocols on the internet, such as SSL or SSH, uses public-keys to build a secure channel, wouldn't a unexpected public disclosure create a chaos on the internet ? A: No. Chaos is hard to create, even on the Internet. Here's an example. Go to Amazon.com. Buy a book without using SSL. Watch the total lack of chaos.
[Emphasis mine.]
How is that an unexpected public disclosure? With that example, he alters the conditions of the experiment, just like opening Schroedinger's box.
If 5,000 people went to Amazon.com and bought something with the expectation that the connection was via SSL, and it turns out it wasn't, the smarter of those 5,000 people would be closing their credit card accounts and their Amazon.com accounts, and demanding restitution from Jeff Bezos for their compromised personal information. Amazon.com would fight them tooth and nail.
Now, tell me that isn't chaos.
With such a pronouncement "from on high" like that, my respect for Mr. Schneier took a serious hit.
Another analogy for you: Dave Clark once commented that using cryptography to communicate with a stranger is like meeting that stranger in a dark alley. Whatever happens, there won't be any witnesses.
I guess the lesson is to use the right tool for the right job. No dogma.
-Fzz
Puh-leaze. While in a reasonable amount of time he is contextually correct, "uncrackable" indicates that there is no way of cracking the code, which isn't true. These things can all be brute forced, even though it might take a really, really long time to crack.
For the uninitiated... ROT13 encoder/decoder is available as a FireFox plugin over at MNenhy
Isn't it funny how the people who really know security are rarely seen making doom and gloom predictions about the end of society as we know it? Most times I see a real security wizard speaking either at a conference or in an interview, they're pragmatic and reasoned in their answers to questions, even stupid ones. Why is it that the people in the best position to know about the security or insecurity of our networks are so calm and circumspect and the remainder of the industry seems hell bent of FUD?
Why is it that the more I know about a topic on slashdot the less intelligent the slashdot community seems?
This guy obviously doesn't run any mail servers.
Sure, new spam filters can be pretty effective. But it takes a lot of resources to deal with spam in terms of hardware and network bandwidth. 75% of all e-mail traffic is SPAM. Millions upon millions a day.
SPAM is a real problem and it's not getting better, it's getting worse. The better we get at blocking it the more spam gets sent to counter this.
Some people might think that if we get good enough at blocking spam, it won't be profitable to send it anymore. I beg to differ. It costs almost nothing to send a million spams. And with all the bot-nets and hijacked mail servers, it's not hard to get them out.
So, because of this very brushed-off response and attitude like he's an authority, I can't take any of his other responses seriously.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
I don't think the interviewer has much knowledge about cryptography, or even security in general. I am judging solely based on the questions asked:
I mean TCP/IP does not use crypto, while a VPN does. Do you think that in the future we'll use crypto for every type of communication?
Which displays a fairly simplistic, and unfortunately common, grasp of security principles, which is: crypto makes things secure, and everything must be secure. The reality is that cryptography is part of a greater security process, and that not every communication *must* be secure. Do you care if someone hears you discussing the newest Family Guy episode at the office, or hears you say "Hi" to your coworkers? No. So why should you be concerned if you're transmitting SYN/ACK or a comment to Slashdot in a relatively clear manner? Secure processes should be implemented where they are needed, and nowhere else, or else security becomes a burden forcing users to find ways to circumvent it.
Should we use crypto to stop the spam problem ?
I hardly know where to begin. How should we use cryptography to prevent spam? There are ways and ways to reduce spam, and perhaps cryptography in the form of some type of message authentication will play a role in that or not, but this is like asking "Should we use hydrogen molecules to cure cancer?". Hydrogen molecules in what context or construct?
I'm no cryptographer, but (call me crazy) I expect a guy writing for SecurityFocus to know more than I do. Or at least to ask questions in an intelligent manner.
Arr! The laws of physics be a harsh mistress!
244321
Cthon98: hey, if you type in your pw, it will show as stars
Cthon98: ********* see!
AzureDiamond: hunter2
AzureDiamond: doesnt look like stars to me
Cthon98: AzureDiamond: *******
Cthon98: thats what I see
AzureDiamond: oh, really?
Cthon98: Absolutely
AzureDiamond: you can go hunter2 my hunter2-ing hunter2
AzureDiamond: haha, does that look funny to you?
Cthon98: lol, yes. See, when YOU type hunter2, it shows to us as *******
AzureDiamond: thats neat, I didnt know IRC did that
Cthon98: yep, no matter how many times you type hunter2, it will show to us as *******
AzureDiamond: awesome!
AzureDiamond: wait, how do you know my pw?
Cthon98: er, I just copy pasted YOUR ******'s and it appears to YOU as hunter2 cause its your pw
AzureDiamond: oh, ok.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
I've sent a credit card number unencypted over the Internet and - nothing bad happened!
It's just a matter of probability - if you have a 1 in 1000000000000000 chance of having a number stolen because of a problem with SSL, you probably have a 1 in 1000000000 chance of having THE packet with your credit card number stolen in transit because some baddie is snooping on the connection.
Of course, once your CC number arrives on the destination server, whether it arrives via SSL or plain-text HTTP, it is logged in world-readable log files and you are doomed.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
I disagree: the two you corrected aren't very readable without the modifications. Worse, they're confused on the technical details so a technically-informed reader will stumble: this still doesn't make sense:unless "RSA/DSA" is a compound crypto scheme - which it isn't. Better: "because they cannot crack RSA- or DSA-based schemes".
Similar complaints with the second one. Additionally the "just" spoils the inferred rhythm as-read (and so the readability), and "USbusiness" should clearly be "U.S. businesses".
Third: he's talking about putting all your eggs in one basket cryptographically. That isn't "monopoly". Again there's readability problems with "having just a couple of" and writing "based" as an intransitive. I really don't think "if cracked" is well-formed either: I'd expect you'd need an explicit subject for "cracked".
But the fourth one? That can't possibly be right!"often used" here *isn't* an adverb phrase. It's not hyphenated for a start
Quoth the poster: "The reality is that cryptography is part of a greater security process, and that not every communication *must* be secure."
Ah, but sometimes not having every communication secure can cause an insecurity in another way.
1. The fact that some of your communications are encrypted/secured gives an observer the information that you are transmitting something secret/sensitive when that occurs. That in itself can be valuable knowledge. For example, if the Army normally sends messages unencrypted to field personnel, and suddenly starts sending a lot of secure communications, that can give away that something big is about to happen.
2. If you secure all your communications, then someone trying to intercept a particular communication message must spend time decrypting all of them to get anything. They don't know which ones to look at.
I'm not arguing that all web traffic should be encrypted or anything like that. And you and I both know that VPN runs on top of TCP/IP, which makes the comparison a bit weird. But it is true that if the underlying transport mechanism (TCP/IP) were trustably secure, we might not need to worry about all these different kinds and layers of security on top of it. Just a thought.
in the last 25 years there has been another development in cryptography which bruce has seemingly left. namely the formal what is often refered to as provable cryptography. i.e. the proccess:
1) Formaly defining both the working model (network, involved parties, computational & other capbabilities...)
2) Defining the variouse forms of security to be achieved. (For example a protocol must be secure if run once, many times in a sequential manour or even in a concurrently manour. Each is a different kind of security and results in a different protocol.)
3) Designing a solution (algorithmn, protocol,...) and useing mathematical methods to PROVE the defficulty of breaking the stated security in the given model is equivalent to some common mathematical problem. (such as certain "large" integers or calculating the descreet log in "large" algebraic groups.)
Public key cryptography is the first practical product of this type of cryptography, however theoretical cryptography is almost nothing BUT this kind of work. the problem with protcols and algorithms designed in such a way is that they are often alot more inefficient then there conventional counter parts. thus most practical cryptographic algorithms (SHA-*, RC*, MD*, DES, AES,...) are not designed in such a rigorouse manour. (if this were the case then the entire field of cryptanalysis would be relegated to efficiently solving a few basic mathematical problems efficiently.) A quick example of a compareson is the note that one provably secure hashing algorithm requires a modular exponentiation per bit hashed. compare that with md5...
As Bruce said, desiging secure protocols is VERY difficult even for the most experienced of cryptographers. This has been the main motivation behind developing and applying a provable approach to cryptography. as the cost of computation and communication decrees and the theoretical tools become more and more efficient i think we will be seeing more of this type of cryptography in practical use. (Zero Knowlege proofs, for example, are already being used in some authentication schemes.) In any case IMHO it is a "trend" to be watched as it is the FIRST line of research in cryptography that truely quantifies security. (i.e. by reduceing the security of a scheme to the difficulty of solving a specific mathematical problem of a given size.)
For decades, in some cases centuries, there have been known bad and good approaches to security and still people violate evidence and common sense on security.
Security professionals know there are certain basic ideas to apply towards security. If they consult, they apply the same basic lessons again and again to several people and often repeat themselves to repeat customers. If the work as a security profession in one organization, they repeat the same thing for their whole career.
The good thing about Schneier's blog is he takes the rudimentary ideas of security and shows the diversity in their applications.
If repetition wasn't necessary, there wouldn't be a plethora of security sites, publications and blogs - or the abundance of exploits, succesfuly viruses, worms, etc.
How many of you don't have a relative whose computer you can sit down on and immediately find some spyware, adware, trojan, virus or other bugger? Can you quiz them on how to handle their id online and on the phone without tripping them up?
That depends on how paranoid you are. If most of your messages are unencrypted, then the few encrypted ones stand out. Selective encryption is like putting a big sign on the encrypted messages telling eavesdroppers that they're worth listening to. If you encrypt everything (and run in through a good anonymizer proxy), then somebody who wants to monitor you has to decrpyt all your Family Guy discussions to find your few subversive messages. If you're really worried about security, you might want to keep up a high backround level of meaningless messages, which would both increase a listener's decryption load and help to foil attempts at traffic analysis.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.