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Android saves wifi passwords in plaintext to the cloud

code.google.com

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Re: Android saves wifi passwords in plaintext to the cloud

#141

Post by mullingitover »

mik3y wrote: post #115
brudgers wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I look at the money. Google made $10 billion last year. In a cyber-war, how much would the Kremlin pay to disrupt every Chinese WiFi network to which an Android device has a current password? In a shooting war, how much would the US pay? Keep in mind that the modern battlefield increasingly uses ordinary data devices particularly in counter-insurgency operations. Jim McDonnell, Donald Douglas, Jack Northrup and Leroy…

I look at the money. In a cyber-war, how much would the Kremlin pay to disrupt every Chinese WiFi network to which an Android device has a current password? Do you think Larry Page can be bought? I'm serious: You need to consider the way Google is run before deciding if any of these theories are plausible. This is a company which has a history of spurning money-making opportunities in favor of some higher ideal (ofte…

> Do you think Larry Page can be bought?

Absolutely. His price is letting him remain a billionaire. I'm of the opinion that most billionaires would sell their own mothers to organ harvesters if failure to do so would result in them becoming poor.

Re: Android saves wifi passwords in plaintext to the cloud

#142

Post by anigbrowl »

moxie wrote: post #122
enginous wrote: post #12

What key are you going to encrypt these passwords with? If you were to encrypt passwords in the cloud with a key that's stored on the device, you can't unlock the passwords on a different device (or the same device after flashing), which is the whole point of backing it up in the cloud. If you were to encrypt them with the user's Google Accounts password, the device would need to ask for that password on every startu…

One way to do it would be: 1) Your plaintext password is used to generate two derivative tokens. One for user authentication with Google, and one for encrypting data stored with Google. The authentication password token is PBKDF2(N, password) and the encryption token is PBKDF2(N-1, password). You give Google the authentication token on signup. They are not capable of deriving the encryption token from it, but the use…

How are you going to check in with the backup server if you don't have a working wi-fi connection?

Re: Android saves wifi passwords in plaintext to the cloud

#143

Post by Groxx »

brudgers wrote: post #67
jsnell wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to dismiss an argument as "horseshit", you should perhaps offer a compelling alternative. Because your idea of what is going on is frankly ridiculous. It's easy to see the user-experience story for this. Upgrade your phone, buy a tablet, etc, and as by magic all 10 wifi networks you use work without any configuration. No need to type that 32-character nuisance of a WPA2 password again, etc. How lovely…

Encrypt the data on the device. Backup encrypted version in the cloud. Download encrypted backup to new device. Unencrypt on new device. Merge versions on the device. No need for plaintext on Google servers. No way for monetization by Google. Or to put my alternative another way, how much is a data set mapping WiFi passwords to networks for the city of Bejing worth to a foreign intelligence agency or other state-leve…

Decrypt encrypted backup on the new device how? What password / key would you use, and how would that be backed up / made known to the user, which it does not do now?

If it's a device password, enjoy re-encrypting if they change it. Or handling two device passwords.

If it's a user password, then how do you change encryption everywhere when they change their password? Only option there is to have Google decrypt and re-encrypt it and push it to every device, since otherwise you losing connection means corrupting your backup, at which point they have it in plaintext, no difference.

Re: Android saves wifi passwords in plaintext to the cloud

#144

Post by [deleted] »

anigbrowl wrote: post #142
moxie wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way to do it would be: 1) Your plaintext password is used to generate two derivative tokens. One for user authentication with Google, and one for encrypting data stored with Google. The authentication password token is PBKDF2(N, password) and the encryption token is PBKDF2(N-1, password). You give Google the authentication token on signup. They are not capable of deriving the encryption token from it, but the use…

How are you going to check in with the backup server if you don't have a working wi-fi connection?

[deleted]

Re: Android saves wifi passwords in plaintext to the cloud

#145

Post by throwaway2048 »

shameless_1 wrote: post #48
brudgers wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Horseshit. Setting up a password for an Android device only needs to be done once for each device->network pairing. The reuse of Wifi passwords across devices is an edge case given the predominate ownership pattern of Android devices - i.e. most people have a phone that runs Android and no other Android device. Google's scheme allows them to harvest the passwords to a vast number of wireless networks. Google has harv…

> Google has harvested the location, name and signal strength of many millions of wireless networks across the world Don't forget that that dataset of wireless locations is updated continuously through crowdsourcing.

to make this a bit clearer, android, apple, etc devices send back wifi BSSID+GPS coordinates to the mothership for AGPS purposes. Im really suprised there hasn't been more concern about this.

Re: Android saves wifi passwords in plaintext to the cloud

#146

Post by philsnow »

jordanthoms wrote: post #121
philsnow wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the central part of my argument, so I'll reiterate it here: users don't care about this stuff, and passwords are user-hostile. Google chose to implement this a certain way that works for 99.99% of people. Now, in the 0.01% case, your counter argument still doesn't hold, in my opinion: > Do you really want to trade all your stored passwords for the convenience of not having to enter 1 additional password ('…

Can you give a source for that - I thought WPA2 AES was still quite secure, assuming you use a long random password?

Ah, you're quite right, thanks for making me look this up.

I found some Toms Hardware article that goes into "a few GPUs in a desktop" all the way through "renting 20 machines with GPUs from EC2 for a while for =12 characters for now), doesn't have dictionary words, and uses more than just [a-zA-Z0-9] will be safe from undedicated adversaries for a number of years (probably the life of whatever router you're using).

Re: Android saves wifi passwords in plaintext to the cloud

#147

Post by somesay »

Tomdarkness wrote: post #3
somesay wrote: post #2

Of course, they don't ask for a specific password. "Encrypt synced passwords with your Google credentials" is impossible in times of app specific passwords, right?

How Chrome for Android handles this, which supports encrypted sync, is that after logging in it will prompt you for your real password so that it can decrypt the sync data.

Sounds handy, but at some point breaks the concept of not saving the main password on any platform. Still not that bad, since app specific passwords only are in use if you also have 2-factor-login.

Re: Android saves wifi passwords in plaintext to the cloud

#148

Post by gcb0 »

sksksk wrote: post #92
gcb0 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You guys can't be serious. How many APs do you even have to use regularly? And slightly related, do you have two factor enabled on your email or is that the end of modern life convenience as well?

Do you never go to a friend's house and use their wifi?

honestly, nope. I never had reception issues at a friend's place, but for coffee shops and hotels, even if reception is bad, i rather use 2G than go login in random networks.

i'm already exposed to the phone operator issues, don't want to have to worry about coffee shops and hotels.

...as using those networks is the very reason passwords in plain text is an issue! you guys are just making your situation 10x worse with this convenience.

Re: Android saves wifi passwords in plaintext to the cloud

#149

Post by MarkMc »

anigbrowl wrote: post #142
moxie wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way to do it would be: 1) Your plaintext password is used to generate two derivative tokens. One for user authentication with Google, and one for encrypting data stored with Google. The authentication password token is PBKDF2(N, password) and the encryption token is PBKDF2(N-1, password). You give Google the authentication token on signup. They are not capable of deriving the encryption token from it, but the use…

How are you going to check in with the backup server if you don't have a working wi-fi connection?

Using a 3G connection, perhaps? In any case such a problem doesn't excuse Google from storing plaintext rather than encrypted passwords on the server.

Re: Android saves wifi passwords in plaintext to the cloud

#150

Post by eslaught »

valisystem wrote: post #24
enginous wrote: post #12

What key are you going to encrypt these passwords with? If you were to encrypt passwords in the cloud with a key that's stored on the device, you can't unlock the passwords on a different device (or the same device after flashing), which is the whole point of backing it up in the cloud. If you were to encrypt them with the user's Google Accounts password, the device would need to ask for that password on every startu…

Firefox does it by asking you to enter a code displayed on a device that already has the key. My guess is that the displayed key is used to decrypt the actual key on the device, and that the key is never seen in clear on the network.

Correct, and not only is it never in the clear over the network, the key is stored such that Mozilla cannot decrypt your content.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-sync-data-secur...

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