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Google Forks OpenSSL, Announces BoringSSL
An anonymous reader writes Two months after OpenBSD's LibReSSL was announced, Adam Langley introduces Google's own fork of OpenSSL, called BoringSSL. "[As] Android, Chrome and other products have started to need some subset of these [OpenSSL] patches, things have grown very complex. The effort involved in keeping all these patches (and there are more than 70 at the moment) straight across multiple code bases is getting to be too much. So we're switching models to one where we import changes from OpenSSL rather than rebasing on top of them. The result of that will start to appear in the Chromium repository soon and, over time, we hope to use it in Android and internally too." First reactions are generally positive. Theo de Raadt comments, "Choice is good!!."
Just what I needed this Saturday, the announcement of yet another implementation of SSL by people I do not to trust
oh joy, oh rapture, etc. etc. etc.
Choice is good, but I am not sure whether mess is good too. How much time before the OpenSSL forks get incompatibles API?
A huge part of the problem with OpenSSL is the attitude that anyone but the "Anointed Few" are discouraged from getting involved with security research or the development of cryptographic software.
I know we're all familiar with the common saying, "Never roll your own crypto!" It's this attitude that drives good people away from even just analysing existing crypto code. Nobody wants to feel the unrelenting wrath of the security community toward outsiders, especially if you happen to find a flaw with something they created.
How will Google avoid this aspect of the problem? Fixing the software bugs are one thing, but the bugs within the community itself are probably far harder to fix.
I was about to write a witty reply to your comment, however the result would not have been interesting, tedious to read, dull, monotonous, repetitive, unrelieved, unvaried, unimaginative, uneventful, characterless, featureless, colorless, lifeless, insipid, uninteresting, unexciting, uninspiring, unstimulating, uninvolving, unreadable, unwatchable, jejune, flat, bland, dry, stale, tired, banal, lackluster, stodgy, vapid, monochrome, dreary, humdrum, mundane, mind-numbing, wearisome, tiring, tiresome, irksome, trying, frustrating, informaldeadly, ho-hum, dullsville, dull as dishwater, plain-vanilla and as boring as a one-man play.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Google forking OpenSSL into their own brand of NSA friendly, privacy snooping SSL. Why not just help the OpenSSL folks strengthen an already great product and assist in regression testing and validation as well? No grow your own and fragment the community you say?
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
BoringSSL is a great name and directly addresses what got OpenSSL into trouble most recently, implementing a new protocol parameter based on a student's idea for a degree thesis. Innovation for innovation's sake, that was. Hurriedly applied for some reason.
And it's not something a website would "use," if you mean a high level protocol akin to "https." It's a library to implement common standards.
Bugs weren't missed in mainline openSSL. Bugs were logged, sat around for years, and didn't get fixed.
The project management and software engineering practices for openSSL were/are simply not acceptable.
The code is salvageable. The people and processes that allowed the code to get that way are not.
"This code under new management"
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Google makes a lot of money on your data. They mine the crap out of your email. Their CEO has said privacy online is silly since if you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide. Summed up: they're indifferent to your sense of privacy. But trust Google to protect it's own interests. It wants to control access to this data. They'll be happy to comply with government requests for data, but on their own terms, and not by willfully subverting the security itself and leaving the door wide open. Being the doorkeeper makes them powerful. Being a doormat is not in their interest.
Compare email (you can choose your provider, but regardless, you can email anyone) vs. social networking (if you choose Facebook and your friend is the one person on Google+, you're out of luck)
That's one of the reasons why I have email, jabber, and sms (and webrtc), but no social network.
For those having a hard time understanding the naming convention,
Boring: Not flashy, not exciting, not experimental, not sexy. Performs as expected.
In other words, exactly how I want my security libraries, my databases, and the other critical infrastructure that runs the planet to be described as. Boring is good. A choice between boring Plain Jane and Simple Sally? Even better. Thank you.
they call it BoringSSL because it contains a backdoor tunneling protocol.
First reactions are generally positive. Theo de Raadt comments, "Choice is good!!."
The name "BoringSSL."
I am finding extreme difficulty in liking this name choice. What was Google thinking? Am I alone?
It's not "What was Google thinking?", it's "What was Adam Langley thinking?". As for what he was thinking, it's pretty simple: Fundamental security components like SSL/TLS should be very, very boring. They're not a place for innovation and experimentation, they're not a place for clever code that demonstrates the author's virtuosity (assuming there is any such place, outside of Obfuscated C contests). They're not a place for exploration of how the C preprocessor can be used to automatically generate much of the codebase (which is something that OpenSSL has done). They're where you want very simple, straightforward, boring implementations of industry best practice algorithms and protocols.
When it comes to security, boring is good.
As Langley said in his blog post, the name is aspirational. But it is his goal, to produce a security library which is completely boring. And it's a good thing.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
So where is the heartbleed bug report that was ignored?
OpenSSL Gets Patch for 4-Year-Old Flaw
That one had a public CVE sitting for 4 years while nobody took the responsibility to fix it.
Without FIPS certification system engineers won't be able to include BoringSSL in US-government facing applications, since doing so will disqualify them from procurement lists. Since US gov't is largest consumer of cryptographic products in the North American market, BoringSSL must certify or stay irrelevant.
All I say is OUCH!
Look at the code you wrote yourself 10-20 years ago.
The simple boring code you still understand and still can compile and use today.
Now look at the code where you put in every trick in the book and then some. Can you understand? Does it compile today? Does it even have a useful function to use today? Is it bug free after all this time?
Unless you did a good job documenting it I am betting there is a no to one of those questions.
To put it bluntly, heartbleed was exciting and in security, exciting is bad.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Actually this isn't silly. Intel has compromised CPU instruction set due to NSA influence (whether that was via a secret order or just because they bend over when asked is unknown). Just look at what this Google engineer said:
https://plus.google.com/+Theod...
So given the option of getting a back door inserted in the SSL protocol used by a huge chunk of the world - the NSA will try to corrupt it.
If served with a secret order, from a secret court on the desire of the NSA for "national security" reasons with orders to, of course keep it secret, Google would have no choice but to comply. The fact that it'll be open source would allow for the possibility of it getting caught (but only the possibility), and I doubt that would keep the NSA from trying to corrupt all 3 SSL protocols as they are being reworked currently. JMHO...
Its name was, in fact, Boren.
That's a reading comprehension issue on the user end.
There's no guarantee that Intel was actually compromised, though they would have been an obvious target. More likely that effort was aimed at dedicated hardware RNGs, which have been a thing since well before RDRAND, but the final point of the post (about not trusting RNGs you can't audit) has obvious merit.
Also, while I think I know what you mean, "all 3 SSL protocols" makes no sense. There are currently four SSL/TLS protocols in use (SSL3, TLS1, TLS1.1, TLS1.2) plus a deprecated one (SSL2, which is broken; SSL1 was never published AFAIK). If you meant SSL implementations, there are at least seven: the three OpenSSL-derived ones (OpenSSL, LibReSSL, BoringSSL), BouncyCastle (which is technically two implementations, Java and C#, but they are supposed to be equivalent), GnuTLS, Mozilla's one (may be client-only?), Apple's one (I think does both client and server but could be wrong), and Microsoft's SChannel (client and server).
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
> they call it BoringSSL because it contains a backdoor tunneling protocol.
In fact, I was thinking: "Boring, my ass", but I didn't know exactly why.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
If I recall correctly, OpenSocial tried to solve exactly that problem?
If I recall correctly, OpenSocial tried to solve exactly that problem? http://opensocial.org/
For SameOldSSL and SSLYourWAY
NSA decided to follow Google's path and annouced a fork of OpenSSL, they will call the new fork SuckingSSL. First reactions are generally positive.
Achille Talon
Hop!
They'll be happy to comply with government requests for data, but on their own terms, and not by willfully subverting the security itself and leaving the door wide open.
I think people forget that regular ol' poor programming may leave things open--incompetence over malice.
OMG facts!
That description isn't very good for the bug: a specially crafted buffer overwrites Alice's data - what? I presume they mean that Bob could takeover Alice's connection, but the description isn't very good.
Moreover, it very much ignores an important issue: just because a bug is spotted, doesn't mean the fix is trivial. In security software the fix might very well open up a different vulnerability.
Debian's SSH flaw was exactly something like this - inappropriately commented weird looking code was removed to "improve" things. And it's exactly that sort of problem which I suspect LibreSSL is going run straight into at some point as well.
You mean FreedomSSL?
And response from security people have either been very positive or they weren't available for comment right now.
It's The Golden Rule: "He who has the gold makes the rules."
> Why not just help the OpenSSL folks strengthen an already great product and assist in regression testing and validation as well?
OpenSSL can't do alot of things they'd like to do because it would break binary compatibility with the old ABI. There are also a number of improvements that would change the API. OpenSSL has committed to sticking with not only the old API, but the old ABI, so you an old program can use the new openssl without even recompiling.
Google isn't restricted by those two things because they recompile Android daily or weekly anyway. Therefore, there's no reason they wouldn't make improvements that change the binary interface. They'd be forgoing significant improvements just for the sake of us the same bad abi that someone designed many years ago, which has no benefit in their products.
They can still send over improvements that they devfolks In some cases, it will be up to the OpenSSL folks to decide if they want to contort the new improvements to fit in the legacy ABI or API.
jejune, must remember that one...
"Largest consumer" means they buy more than ANYONE else, not more than EVERYONE else.
Does the world's largest man account for over half the weight of all humans? No, he's bigger than any other man, not bigger than all other men put together. A lot of people buy Android phones. Can you name a consumer who buys more than the US government.
LibreSSL maintains API and ABI compatibility with OpenSSL, so you can upgrade your encryption without rewriting all of your applications. That's one reason that people in general use LibreSSL rather than something completely different. Also, it's on its way to becoming the most thoroughly audited SSL/TLS library in the world.
Google doesn't mind recompiling their software, so they need only API compatibility, not ABI compatibility.
I think OpenSSL should be broken up into pieces that work together so different parts can be worked on separately. Needless to say I think the OpenBSD group has the better, more achievable for open source, path for the future of the library. I'm not a hater of all things Google; but, I don't think "in-house" code is a good choice for the GNU parts of Linux/BSDs
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
On the flip side of that, anything with BoringSSL will not be restricted from exporting outside of the U.S. /snark
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Good points but a lot of speculation on Google's intentions. I think it'll be like everything else they've done for open source. Embrace, Extend and then Emprision (sic) much like "we don't like Java so we'll make our own" It's the Bender philosophy. Sure OpenSSL may have an older API/ABI however what's the driving factor for something new? There's just no way I can trust Google after the NSA revelations and their incessant tracking crap. First it was Facebook and all their damn trackers now Google Metrics, Google Analytics on almost every fucking webpage out there. Sorry do no evil is no longer valid at Google and I look at any attempt at embracing or forking and already existent open source project as suspicious and motivated by some shit that'll eventually get me condom ads.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
No surprise.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Yes, it's hard to get excited about BoringSSL.
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
I thought that BoringSSL was named in honor of classic Superman artist Wayne Boring.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
It's not speculation at all, I pretty much quoted the discussion that led to the fork. I just added a very brief explanation of the terms ABI and API.
> and I look at any attempt at embracing or forking
It appears that you refused to look at it at all, preferring to apply your preconceived conclusion without bothering to take 60 to read what is happening and why.
I'm not suggesting Google is impervious to coercion, only that the have an incentive to maintain as secure a platform as they are able. They are no more vulnerable to corruption than OpenSSL was (though it could even be argued that their political and economic clout makes them less vulnerable; but I wouldn't get behind that position).