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$200,000 to the first person to break Telegram

telegram.org

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Re: $200,000 to the first person to break Telegram

#141

Post by warfangle »

sdevlin wrote: post #137

This is really chickenshit, which is completely in line with everything else these guys have said or done. Just so we're clear, this rules out: * Chosen plaintext attacks * Chosen ciphertext attacks * Adaptive chosen ciphertext attacks * EDIT: Also any kind of side channel If you're keeping score at home, that's just about everything. The only thing that would fail to meet this definition of security is repeating key…

If you were able to exploit vulnerabilities in the server, the software distribution, and the client... but that's not testing Telegram itself, it's testing everything in between -- including what's between the chair and keyboard.

Which is where the weaknesses (as witnessed by bitcoin shenanigans) lie, anyhow.

Re: $200,000 to the first person to break Telegram

#142

Post by DanBC »

x0054 wrote: post #135

I have a better challenge! From today until March 1, 2014, I will SSH into my server and type a secret email address on the command prompt. Send me an email to that address and tell me my crypto key, and I will allow you to pet my dog for 5 minutes. (Sorry, I do not have $200k in BTC, or any other currency, for that matter :(, but my dog is totally cute.) The point is, the above challenge is impossible without a MITM…

> This contest will prove one thing, and one thing only, the cryptographic algorithm they are using is secure. And it SHOULD be, considering that there are a lot of publicly available secure algorithms.

It doesn't even prove that. It proves that no one has told you about any flaws yet. The algorithm may be secure, but their implementation of it might have bugs.

Re: $200,000 to the first person to break Telegram

#143

Post by mynameisvlad »

blahbl4hblahtoo wrote: post #62

Note to everyone in technology...Hacker News isn't the crowd that you need to impress. The cryptanalysis community, in particular, has a small group of experts that can credibly critique your ideas. They would probably love to pick apart a new system...seriously in the hopes that it advances the art, but critically in the case that it doesn't. Claims of some kind of "tightly knit" cabal of closed minded people exclud…

Did I miss somewhere where it stated this was HN-specific? This could just as easily have (and probably has) been posted to multiple communities, including ones that are more crypto-focused.

Just because it appears here does not in any way shape or form indicate that they're trying to impress the HN community, nor that they're specifically targeting HN.

Re: $200,000 to the first person to break Telegram

#144

Post by xerophtye »

Ok so here's what i understand what's going on here from reading the challenge and people's responses.

1) A classical crypto-challenge where you are given a cipher text and the algorithm and told to crack it is somewhat useless Because that would just prove strength of the primitive algorithm, not the system. Here you are given a scenario and told to use whatever attack is at your disposal to hijack the conversation and somehow retrieve the plain text. So while it is similar to in someways, but not exactly the same case.

2) People are not amused because they seem to find the vulnerability that upon initiation of the secret chat, the first time, the server can perform a MITM attack. Because apparently they use a Deffie-Helman key exchange where the server connects them to each other. So the server is in the best position to do the MITM. And since this contest does not allow to make that attack (even if u had the server in your control, the secret chat has been initiated already).

And hence everyone is frustrated because they seem to KNOW the system is weak, but they cant prove it right now. And this will lead to Telegram boasting in March.

Re: $200,000 to the first person to break Telegram

#146

Post by cperciva »

MarkMc wrote: post #136
mds wrote: post #29

Cryptography Snake Oil Warning Sign #9: Cracking contests. https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-9902.html (1999)

Tarsnap has a bug-bounty program [1] which has uncovered numerous bugs, including a critical security bug [2] It seems to me that offering a bug bounty can significantly improve the security of a system, even when the prize-money is relatively small. [1] http://www.tarsnap.com/bugbounty.html [2] http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2011-01-18-tarsnap-critical-...

The nonce-increment bug wasn't found as part of the bug bounty program; it was retroactively included when I set up the bug bounty program a few months later.

Re: $200,000 to the first person to break Telegram

#147

Post by bobowzki »

mds wrote: post #29

Cryptography Snake Oil Warning Sign #9: Cracking contests. https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-9902.html (1999)

"Since key length and key structure vary and since the encryption engine does not use any mathematical algorithms, reverse engineering is impossible and guessing is not an option"

Gold :-)

Re: $200,000 to the first person to break Telegram

#149

Post by paveldurov »

forgottenpass wrote: post #113
mikeyouse wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, but the tone of the previous discussion was definitely more along the lines of "This could never work, you guys don't know what you're doing." If it proves resilient over 2.5 months of highly motivated attacks (motivated by both the money / "I-Told-You-So" factor), I think that's a fairly strong statement in their favor.

OK, but where the hell are they going to get 2.5 months of highly motivated attacks by highly skilled people? All the people I would want looking at this aren't going to waste such a huge chunk of their time analyzing some random phone app trying to make a name for themselves for a chance at a cash reward. Bug bounties by big name companies that are actually after bugs rather than publicity haven't miraculously made…

I agree with you here. That is why such contests are going to be permanent in Telegram. New contests like this will be launched in March 2014 or earlier if anyone wins earlier. Consider the date for breaking Telegram open.

Re: $200,000 to the first person to break Telegram

#150

Post by beagle3 »

devinj wrote: post #122
ceph_ wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's anything that's certain, it's the progress of compute power. The fact that his statement lasted 14 years is impressive. I mean, 640K ought to be enough for anyone.

No, not at all. Requiring an increase of 2048 bits over 14 years implies that computing power increases by a factor of 2 16 every year.

That would be true if RSA keys were brute forced, but they aren't - e.g. 512 bit RSA takes days/weeks to break on commodity hardware these days, whereas 512 bit brute force (as is essentially needed for ECC these days) takes significantly longer than the estimated age of the universe.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integer_factorization_records

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