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It’s Always Sunny in Reykjavik or How I NSA-Proofed My Email (2013)

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Re: It’s Always Sunny in Reykjavik or How I NSA-Proofed My Email (2013)

#31

Post by schoen »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #22
rsync wrote: post #19

In his "overview of features" he is missing one very interesting and valuable security gain when you host your own mail server: - local mail delivery does not traverse any network So if you are user A on a mailserver and your wife/friend/uncle is user B, when you send mail to them that mail is simply a local copy operation (provided they don't POP or IMAP it to a local mailtool). That's pretty interesting, I think. I…

Well, its going over ssh which uses networking. If you're viewing the email on a networked terminal connection, its still traversing a network as it displays it in pine and that data gets sent over ssh. I don't see why using ssh suddenly makes you immune to these concerns. This is no different than using a rich webmail client over SSL.

Maybe SSH has better cryptographic properties (say, around forward secrecy and key management) than the common options for delivering e-mail remotely over the network. (You could choose the key types and key lengths yourself and choose how authentication keys are stored and when they need to be changed, and you don't have to rely on an external naming or CA mechanism if you distribute fingerprints and authentication keys directly to the users.)

Re: It’s Always Sunny in Reykjavik or How I NSA-Proofed My Email (2013)

#32

Post by valdiorn »

yownie wrote: post #10

Hi, Iceland checking in here. While we appreciate you hosting here, we're by no means any safer than other countries now. First I'll note that this posting is from 2013, so quite a bit has changed here since that time. IMMI (immi.is) is still being hashed out in parliaments and making slow progress. Meanwhile we've had some particularly ridiculous public spectacles regarding ppl hosting data here in Iceland thinking…

Also from Iceland; can confirm that the Icelandic govt. has taken a 180 on online civil liberties and privacy since the early days of the IMMI, which also never really made it into law.

Re: It’s Always Sunny in Reykjavik or How I NSA-Proofed My Email (2013)

#33

Post by nickpsecurity »

The NSA used to certify systems as highly assured by exhaustively analyzing and pentesting them for years. Had to beat their pentesters to be approved. Then, they'd try to restrict their export. It was a whole system process that applied from bottom to top to minimize complexity, reduce leaks, and enforce security policies. Here's a description of a superset of that I used in private work:

http://pastebin.com/y3PufJ0V

So, let's just compare the author's email to that list. A strong TCB at OS/firmware/trusted-component level like with EROS, INTEGRITY-178B, or GenodeOS? Nope. Components or apps made in a manner to reduce complexity, be type/memory safe, use static analysis, analyzed for covert channels, and so on? Probably not given names I saw. Do the underlying projects use a subversion-resistant development process and SCM security that assumes a number of them are malicious w/ independent auditing? Virtually nobody does that despite Myers (1980) showing subversion the most powerful attack. Has the crypto and its implementation been tested by experts in that? Don't know. Has the overall system and configuration been pentested by TAO-grade hackers? No.

So, it's far from NSA-proof as the underlying properties necessary for NSA-proof operation don't exist here. They exist only in a handful of defense-oriented products with some traits existing in other security-focused projects (esp in academia). This, at best, will slow down nation state attackers who are probably uninterested in his system anyway. A good configuration and 0-day mitigation tech might make this build survive typical blackhats and snoops. A real, threat profile along with more reasonable goal.

Won't stop the NSA, though. You can put money on that. Assume it's true every time you hear it, too. You can't stop nation-state attackers until you know how (see framework) then apply that to every level and user/machine interfaces. Even then, it might work and might just be an obstacle. So, include monitoring & logging on top of it.

Re: It’s Always Sunny in Reykjavik or How I NSA-Proofed My Email (2013)

#38

Post by nickpsecurity »

rloc wrote: post #12

I'm really surprised this could be NSA-Proofed without the use of true end-to-end encryption tech. There is no mention of PGP for instance. Using PGP (with a locally stored private key) is one of the best option I'm aware of to secure emails and continue to use email cloud clients like gmail or yahoo. The only caveat is that you loose search which is one of the requirements in the article.

I have doubts about PGP but GPG is a great choice. One of best given it's specifically mentioned in the Snowden leaks as a problem for NSA. Only a few tech like that, which didn't include the PGP/GPG alternatives everyone was crowing about. Apparently they weren't much of a problem for NSA. ;)

Re: It’s Always Sunny in Reykjavik or How I NSA-Proofed My Email (2013)

#39

Post by vox_mollis »

darklajid wrote: post #26
rsync wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious - have you ever used a text/curses based email client ? It's amazingly fast and you can forget all about browser security since you do it over SSH. It's an extremely efficient workflow (albeit with some hacks required to get modern functionality). I switched to pine in ... 1993 ? I've never used anything else (except for brief stints of corporate email account and consulting, many years ago). You'll note…

Yes. I was using (al)pine for a while. It's bearable, okay even. But I guess I don't see how you could turn that into a 'mobile' client. For the time I used pine I was ssh-ing into a box of mine for most of the day, while I was in front of a computer. I didn't care much about mail notifications on the go. Now I do. If there's some (reliable! I don't care about the initial one-off effort) way to make that work with em…

But I guess I don't see how you could turn that into a 'mobile' client

Solution to this is to remember what the purpose of email actually is. It's supposed to be asynchronous communication, with the expectation that it may be checked, at most, 1-3 times daily. If you need communication immediately and in any location, instant messaging covers that use case much better.

Re: It’s Always Sunny in Reykjavik or How I NSA-Proofed My Email (2013)

#40

Post by nickpsecurity »

yownie wrote: post #10

Hi, Iceland checking in here. While we appreciate you hosting here, we're by no means any safer than other countries now. First I'll note that this posting is from 2013, so quite a bit has changed here since that time. IMMI (immi.is) is still being hashed out in parliaments and making slow progress. Meanwhile we've had some particularly ridiculous public spectacles regarding ppl hosting data here in Iceland thinking…

Thanks for the links. So, what's the word on how much they protect something that's not a crime in Iceland, not proven to be criminal in general (eg crypto app site), and demanded highly by FBI?
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