1Password and the Crypto Wars • Hacker News Board

Re: 1Password and the Crypto Wars

#101

Post by SCdF » Sat, Sep 07, 2013, 9:56 PM UTC

bowlofpetunias wrote: post #53

SCdF wrote: post #21

In for a penny, in for a pound. If you care about security enough to use a password safe you might as well also use an open source solution that has even a remote chance of having its code looked at by more people than the ones trying to sell it to you. I mean, I know 1Password is all pretty and animated and things, but things like KeePass aren't so ugly as to be unusable.

KeePass is utterly unusable for ordinary users. Especially on non-Windows platforms, where it takes voodoo to make it even run.

You need to be more specific, because in my experience that's not even remotely true. There wasn't a single "weird" step involved in using it, and I use it on Windows, Mac, Linux and Android (3rd party client). You create a db, with a password or a key (if you don't know what a key is ignore it), and then you can add passwords. Done.

Re: 1Password and the Crypto Wars

#102

Post by teamgb » Sun, Sep 08, 2013, 12:03 AM UTC

revelation wrote: post #94

jpgoldberg wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Disclosure: I work for AgileBits, the makers of 1Password. The PBKDF2 speed up was 2x, not 4x. Jens was simply wrong about that. The "disputed" speed up comes from an PBKDF2 optimization that is available to the defender as it is to the attacker. 1Password makes use of that optimization. So it gives no advantage to the attacker. It is not a speed up when the defender makes use (as we do) of the same trick. What vers…

As stated, the check for updates is finally over HTTPS in the very latest build (333), but you do not verify the certificate in any way. So its essentially HTTP with obfuscation. This allows a malicious network to downgrade clients to build 332, where the check for updates is over plain HTTP and downloaded binaries are not verified.

Can you write a blog post about this? Need to get this information out there. Good job finding this.

Re: 1Password and the Crypto Wars

#103

Post by teamgb » Sun, Sep 08, 2013, 12:05 AM UTC

stayradiated wrote: post #33

revelation wrote: post #18

Back in April, there was an attack on 1Password that managed to exploit some flaws in its crypto scheme to achieve a sizable speedup. [1] To this day, they have not managed to rollout the new 1Password 4 Cloud Keychain that is supposed to fix these flaws. [2] Lots of smooth talk, but apparently security is not a blocker. 1: http://hashcat.net/forum/thread-2238.html 2: http://discussions.agilebits.com/discussion/14780…

> To this day, they have not managed to rollout the new 1Password 4 Cloud Keychain that is supposed to fix these flaws. The Cloud Keychain format is currently used in 1Password 4 for iOS. 1Password 4 for Mac is also in public beta and will probably be released around the same time as OS X Mavericks.

What comes first, security for users, or marketing a new release?

If this new format is more secure and ready to roll out, why delay?

What if Mavericks doesn't get released in October but gets pushed back to sometime next year?

Re: 1Password and the Crypto Wars

#104

Post by teamgb » Sun, Sep 08, 2013, 12:07 AM UTC

chmars wrote: post #71

Create wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KeePass https://www.keepassx.org/ http://keepass.info/

I used KeePassX in the past but switched to 1Password since there was no browser support to speak of. Has that changed?

One is open source, the other isn't.

What is more important - security or convenience?

Re: 1Password and the Crypto Wars

#105

Post by jgalt212 » Sun, Sep 08, 2013, 3:55 AM UTC

This is sort of funny: Back on June 6, 2013 David Pogue wrote a puff piece on Dashlane

interesting quote:

No system is foolproof. But Dashlane notes that it doesn’t ever see your passwords or your credit card information. They’re all stored on your own computer, encoded by the AES-256 encryption method, an open-source standard approved by the National Security Agency.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/06/technology/personaltech/to...

Re: 1Password and the Crypto Wars

#106

Post by e12e » Sun, Sep 08, 2013, 4:10 AM UTC

rorrr2 wrote: post #36

azov wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can, for example, have a policy that every code change is reviewed by a non-US employee.

Unless the backdoor is inserted right before the compilation.

How about several build servers, and a system for comparing builds -- giving an error if one (or more) of the builds differ?

You'd still have to run that same algorithm against all distribution mirrors, and even then, you'd have to find a way for any suspect distribution site not to be able to detect who's downloading (giving a potential reviewer a "good" build, while giving everyone else a false one).

Come to think of it, this might be a good case for distribution over bittorrent?

Re: 1Password and the Crypto Wars

#107

Post by e12e » Sun, Sep 08, 2013, 4:14 AM UTC

eddieroger wrote: post #89

rorrr2 wrote: post #35

DO NOT USE 1Password. If you care about security, there's absolutely no reason to use 1Password over an open source solution like KeePass. Even if 1Password doesn't have a backdoor now, nothing would stop NSA from inserting one and keep the owners quiet about it with a gag order. AgileBits is a US company, and so you cannot trust their security. Thank the US government for that.

Is your entire argument for me to stop using 1Password because the NSA could (by your own assertion) put a backdoor in my app? Or do you have another, better reason? I could just not update 1Password, and then I'm never at risk for this supposed back door.

Never is a long time -- what do you do when you get a new device, on a new platform? Do you download a new build for your platform, or do you migrate away?

Re: 1Password and the Crypto Wars

#108

Post by mannkind » Sun, Sep 08, 2013, 4:42 AM UTC

rorrr2 wrote: post #85

Miyamoto wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you care about security, there's absolutely no reason to use 1Password over an open source solution like KeePass. Uh, except it's Windows only? Sorry, I use 1Password only on my iPhone as if it were a hardware authenticator. No problems.

KeePass is open source. There are ports for every major OS. I used it on my android devices, for instance.

KeePass basically only works well on Windows and you have to trust all the other implementations that make it pseudo-crossplatform.

You mention "open-source" so much one would think its a weapon.

Re: 1Password and the Crypto Wars

#109

Post by da_n » Sun, Sep 08, 2013, 6:47 PM UTC

xiaomai wrote: post #38

I'm a huge fan of this command-line password manager: http://zx2c4.com/projects/password-store/ It's just a simple wrapper around gpg and (optionally) git. Makes it real easy to sync passwords between machines and you can be as confident as possible about the security.

For someone who lives more and more on the command line Pass looks really nice. The only issue I have is that the lastpass importer is not working for me, tried it with 2 different version of Ruby but always get a NoMethodError. Adding 400+ passwords is going to be a huge pita.

Re: 1Password and the Crypto Wars

#110

Post by jpgoldberg » Tue, Sep 10, 2013, 3:37 AM UTC

revelation wrote: post #94

jpgoldberg wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Disclosure: I work for AgileBits, the makers of 1Password. The PBKDF2 speed up was 2x, not 4x. Jens was simply wrong about that. The "disputed" speed up comes from an PBKDF2 optimization that is available to the defender as it is to the attacker. 1Password makes use of that optimization. So it gives no advantage to the attacker. It is not a speed up when the defender makes use (as we do) of the same trick. What vers…

As stated, the check for updates is finally over HTTPS in the very latest build (333), but you do not verify the certificate in any way. So its essentially HTTP with obfuscation. This allows a malicious network to downgrade clients to build 332, where the check for updates is over plain HTTP and downloaded binaries are not verified.

I was wrong. The updater in 1Password for Windows 1.0.9.333 is vulnerable to an evilgrade attack. It fails to verify the the trust of the certificate on the (alleged) upgrade server and will accept any old self-signed certificated.

I would like to thank whoever sent us a Proof of Concept, and I would like to apologize for actually needing the PoC before sufficiently testing my own claims.