Slashdot Mirror
TCP/IP Might Have Been Secure From the Start If Not For the NSA
chicksdaddy writes: "The pervasiveness of the NSA's spying operation has turned it into a kind of bugaboo — the monster lurking behind every locked networking closet and the invisible hand behind every flawed crypto implementation. Those inclined to don the tinfoil cap won't be reassured by Vint Cerf's offhand observation in a Google Hangout on Wednesday that, back in the mid 1970s, the world's favorite intelligence agency may have also stood in the way of stronger network layer security being a part of the original specification for TCP/IP. (Video with time code.) Researchers at the time were working on just such a lightweight cryptosystem. On Stanford's campus, Cerf noted that Whit Diffie and Martin Hellman had researched and published a paper that described the functioning of a public key cryptography system. But they didn't yet have the algorithms to make it practical. (Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman published the RSA algorithm in 1977). As it turns out, however, Cerf did have access to some really bleeding edge cryptographic technology back then that might have been used to implement strong, protocol-level security into the earliest specifications of TCP/IP. Why weren't they used? The crypto tools were part of a classified NSA project he was working on at Stanford in the mid 1970s to build a secure, classified Internet. 'At the time I couldn't share that with my friends,' Cerf said."
National Insecurity Agency
It would be utterly obsolete by now and would just be a legacy function that would have to be supported for legacy apps and would be a security swiss cheese. TCP is better off just being a pure transport later protocol with modern crypto layered on top.
It's true, that had the NSA chosen to share that info, we could have had better security. On the other hand, the NSA were the ones that developed it, so if not for the NSA, it would not have existed to use.
If TCP/IP had included crypto, we'd all be using IPX now days...
The reason TCP/IP proliferated was because it was light-weight and easy to implement. Crypto would have killed that.
If TCP/IP had encryption way back when, it never would have worked because it's too slow. Shit, stuff was so slow that people turned off checksumming. Imagine having to do something exciting, like actual encryption. It'd be worse than running a 300 baud modem.
We used to use telnet, ftp and uucp, those weren't secure or encrypted.
The internet used to be open and free, owned by no one.
It's a stretch to think they wanted to do encryption from the start.
Rather misleading article and slant there. It implies that the NSA deliberately took action to make TCP/IP insecure. However, in reality, the NSA merely didn't contribute their classified work towards the specification of TCP/IP. And frankly, that's a good idea. The overhead of encryption at that time would have been too much. Additionally, cryptography only gets better with time, so whatever algorithm that would have been selected would have long since been obsolete. And due to backwards compatibility, would still have to be implemented. After all, things like routers and such are a tad more difficult to update than programs.
the world's favorite intelligence agency may have also stood in the way of stronger network layer security
But that is misleading. The NSA did not "stand in the way". The just declined to help. That is not the same thing.
the world's favorite intelligence agency may have also stood in the way of stronger network layer security
But that is misleading. The NSA did not "stand in the way". The just declined to help. That is not the same thing.
The research existed, Cerf had access to it, but they didn't allow it to be used.
If your house is burning down and the fire chief prevents you from using the fire hydrant in front of your house even though you have the right equipment to hook up to it, wouldn't you say he's standing in the way? He's not just declining to help, he's actively preventing you from using tools and knowledge that you have because he's afraid that other people will see you do it and then they'll know how to fight their own fires.
The headline is horribly horribly misleading. I hope people at least RTFS.
Exactly. This isn't a "would have been" that failed because of NSA involvement. This is a "would not have been" that failed all on its own. The NSA had some confidential tools at its disposal that may have been able to salvage the idea, but them not sharing their tools is hardly a reason for us to be shaking our fists and saying "it would have worked if not for them". It's like blaming a toll road for your late arrival after choosing to take public streets instead of the toll road. It makes no sense.
It also at the time would be been considered a state secret. Until the late 90s publishing any of a huge number of crypto tools to the international community was illegal. So even if he had permission to publish this research to the US, it couldn't be given out internationally. That's not the "NSA"s decision, that's was much higher up than them.
Most things don't use the entire stack.
TCP/IP needs to be seperate layers because you don't want to use TCP for everything.
Everything on the internet has an IP address, so that is the universal internet layer. You can put TCP or UDP or any number of more obscure layers on top of that.
Most applications squish the sesson,presentation,application layers into one, keeping them seperate is optional, there isn't a separate encapsulation header for each just a session flag to keep track the individual connection.
Under the IP layer (network) you have the data-link and physical layer. data-link is your MAC address (this is neccesary) and physical is your wire, there isn't a protocol there generally, though there is for WIFI for example which doesn't use wires.
grumble grumble
NSA.
For everything that's wrong... blame them.
It's not that our society is failing, that our voters are mentally obese and thus always pick the wrong option.
Nope, it's the NSA. NSA did this to you. You're the victim, not the perpetrator.
Keep saying it and maybe someday, you'll believe it.
Futurist Traditionalism
funny you should mention that. not exactly the same but http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3951...
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
There were individuals and organizations back in the seventies and eighties that got in trouble with the US Government for writing and publishing software that used strong encryption. The problem was that the published code was visible from outside the US and ran afoul of ITAR regulation (citation: check the history of PGP). Incorporating strong encryption in TCP/IP would have made its use and adoption subject to US ITAR regulation.
The only way to hide traffic path is through partial-information relaying - the Tor approach. Nasty overhead. But even the most pathetic payload encryption would really make a huge difference - it would mean tapping all traffic at a trunk would require dynamically following hundreds of thousands of conversations betweeen tens of thousands of nodes. The NSA could do it, a lot of smaller governments couldn't.
Also, even a DH key exchange without any public key authentication at all is still somewhat effective: Yes, it can be MITMed with ease, but such an attack is also very detectable if you have a side channel, which means any untargetted mass-monitoring operations would be swiftly noticed.
Exaclty. Kind of like saying my home-A-bomb project for the kids science fair was ruined by the DOE not letting me take the secret plans home from work.
The research existed, Cerf had access to it, but they didn't allow it to be used.
The research would not have existed if not for the NSA. So how might TCP/IP have been secure from the start if not for them?
Only because they could not.
NSA has not tortured any one either.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Re Would Mr. Snowden receive the same respect and adoration
Yes as US gov protections in place for just such legal events eg safe from US gov surveillance without a warrant.
If you see the US Constitution protections been removed via color of law efforts you have the duty, right and responsibility to bring such facts to the US publics attention.
The US political and legal system can then correct the legal issues.
The US legal issues raised by Snowden are easy to understand in an open court by most legal professionals and the wider public.
http://www.freedomwatchusa.org...
Months after Snowden US warrantless reality is uncovered:
"NSA performed warrantless searches on Americans' calls and emails – Clapper" (2 April 2014)
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
The main issue for "understanding" is that the entire US copper and optical telco hardware is surveillance friendly.
Another issue for "understanding" is that the entire US copper and optical telco software layer is surveillance friendly.
Another issue for "understanding" is that encryption standards are junk - the US gov gets back to plain text, ex staff get back too, other countries get back to plain text, so can their ex staff and people who can pay them...
People are finally understanding the entire structure of their telecommunications network is really like "ENIGMA" version 10? 50? in the 1960,1970, 1980, 1900's --2000 and beyond. Lots of new fancy digital "rotors" to sell but its all back to plain text in real time over decades.
So today people are finally looking at the origins of TCP/IP and wondering how it was shaped, set as a standard and promoted.
Expect skilled academics to start going over ever historic telco layer and many common encryption standard too.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Snowden's published revelations cover much more than (admittedly reprehensible) warrantless spying on US citizens. For example, he revealed NSA's capability to record all telephone traffic of a foreign country.
Anyone alerting the Germans in 1943, that Enigma is compromised, would've been (justly) denounced as a traitor... What changed?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Wow, it's always a tough competition, but this may win "Ridiculous Slashdot Headline Of The Week".
Logic 101, folks. Let's recap that headline:
"TCP/IP Might Have Been Secure From the Start If Not For the NSA"
Now, what's the story here? One of TCP/IP's designers had access to some then-bleeding-edge crypto *that was part of an NSA project*, but couldn't include it in TCP/IP because it was secret.
Now, can we support the idea that "if not for the NSA" that crypto could have gone into TCP/IP? No, because "if not for the NSA" that crypto *wouldn't have fucking existed at all*. The NSA wrote it. So the choices are "code written, but not available for use" or "code not written at all". Practical difference for the purposes of TCP/IP: zip.
Bad analogy.
The NSA didn't tell Cerf not to use this cryptography scheme. Cerf didn't even ask. He was working on a classified research project(NSA cryptography) and working on a unclassified academic experiment(TCP/IP).
I keep fish as a hobby. I have a friend who researches new antibiotics. Do you think my friend's employer is "standing in the way" when he doesn't give me the latest and most potent antibiotics which aren't even publicly available to treat my fish?
The NSA has two conflicting tasks:
(1) Secure national communications.
(2) Break other countries communications.
This made sense in the 1950s when secure encryption was something only the military, spies, etc used. It breaks down badly in the internet, international era.
"They declined to help" hides the fact that _that was their job_. They are the national, even world experts on the problem, and they stood back
and allowed a broken internet security model. Elsewhere, they've made swiss cheese of encryption standards so they could continue to do (2),
at the cost of (1).
The NSA is Broken As Designed and needs to be scrapped.
Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist
If TCP/IP had included crypto, we'd all be using IPX now days...
The reason TCP/IP proliferated was because it was light-weight and easy to implement. Crypto would have killed that.
There would have been more resistance to adopting it, too.
As it was, there was substantial resistance among people and institutions sited outside the US, because the Internet was a DARPA project, i.e. U.S. Military. Other countries, organizations within them, and even some people in the US, were concerned about things like what the US might be building in - like interception and backdoors for espionage and sabotage - or just because "Military! Bad!". Including encryption from the then officially nonexistent, deepest secret, communications spy agency would have boosted that resistance substantially.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Also, even a DH key exchange without any public key authentication at all is still somewhat effective: Yes, it can be MITMed with ease, but such an attack is also very detectable if you have a side channel, which means any untargetted mass-monitoring operations would be swiftly noticed.
Perhaps a stupid question (not a crypto expert here), but if you have a not-easily-MITMed side channel, wouldn't you use that for key exchange? Or at least to verify the keys?
C - the footgun of programming languages
If you have the channel, yes. But in most situations, you don't.
Researchers or activists trying to detect censorship efforts do. It wouldn't take many people running checks to notice.