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The DNSSEC Root Signing Ceremony

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Re: The DNSSEC Root Signing Ceremony

#21

Post by wtallis »

icebraining wrote: post #20
wtallis wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. DNSSEC doesn't protect against ISPs hijacking DNS responses DNSSEC protects signed zones by allowing clients to notice a suspicious lack of a valid signature on responses that should have been signed. DNSSEC doesn't protect unsigned zones, but that shouldn't surprise anyone and isn't really an indictment of DNSSEC's capabilities. > I'm not sure what difference it makes to be sending packets to the wrong IP. That…

But the clients' stub resolvers don't validate the answers, so how can they notice the lack of a valid signature?

Some clients don't validate. Some do. Everything on my home network is protected because my router's instance of dnsmasq validates. When I'm away from home, there's dnssec-trigger and a Firefox extension.

I really don't understand why the existence of software that doesn't try to take advantage of DNSSEC is being used as evidence that DNSSEC is incapable of doing something.

Re: The DNSSEC Root Signing Ceremony

#22

Post by deathanatos »

toast0 wrote: post #9
ta0o0o0 wrote: post #4

So how is this logically different than the replacement of all CAs with a single one?

DNS is already a a distributed chain of trust. I trust that the well know ftp site will give me a good hints file to get to the root servers. I trust that the root servers will provide me with the proper ns and glue records for the tld servers. I trust that the tld servers will provide the correct ns and glue records for the domain I want to resolve. DNSSEC just formalizes the trust with digital signatures. A traditi…

> A DS record doesn't indicate a connection between an organization and a domain though, which a traditional CA supposedly might.

Only if you get an EV certificate, no? My understanding is that the only checks required for getting a normal certificate issued is to verify that the person holding the key that you're signing is in control of the domain. (Verified through methods such as setting particular DNS records, proving control of the email on the WHOIS data, or setting up an HTTP server at a particular DNS address.)

Then again, most sites just use a basic cert, so perhaps DNSSEC provides most of what is needed.

Re: The DNSSEC Root Signing Ceremony

#24

Post by natch »

It's amusing that their plexiglass labeled holder for the OS DVD has OS misspelled as O/S. I believe this misspelling most likely stems from people having seen and slightly jumbled part of the name of the old IBM branded operating system, OS/2.

Re: The DNSSEC Root Signing Ceremony

#26

Post by scintill76 »

leni536 wrote: post #19
escape_goat wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too do not know enough to not feel silly for asking this, but I have a similar feeling, and I am not sure if I have misunderstood the past year's worth of popular articles on USB security, the risk posed by the USB in the context of the ceremony, or both. I had gotten the impression that the firmware vulnerabilities of USB flash drives had proven to be inherent, unavoidable, and utterly devastating; that, basically…

I don't know too much about badusb, but I think some mitigation is possible. 1. Use an USB key that doesn't have an updateable firmware. 2. Configure the laptop to only accept a single USB mass storage device on a dedicated port. No keyboard, no mouse. I should be possible with udev rules.

There may also be the threat of a malicious entity submitting their key-sign request on a malicious USB device, although the article doesn't seem to say whose USB device gets plugged in.

I agree it's probably simple to lock down the possible USB devices (ideally, don't even compile-in support for them in the kernel), but I am wondering if anyone can confirm it's been done, and I would still worry about exploits in the USB stack or hardware. It seems like this is the biggest chink in the armor, so I'd go for hand-keying from paper (a redundant encoding can probably make this not excruciating for the humans involved), another optical disc (CD-R), a floppy disk, a camera for scanning something like QR codes, a simple wired serial link, serial over infrared. I suppose these all have some tradeoffs, but at least some of them don't involve plugging in another electronic device that uses a complex general-purpose protocol just to transfer what probably amounts to a few dozen kilobytes.

Re: The DNSSEC Root Signing Ceremony

#27

Post by dragonwriter »

natch wrote: post #24

It's amusing that their plexiglass labeled holder for the OS DVD has OS misspelled as O/S. I believe this misspelling most likely stems from people having seen and slightly jumbled part of the name of the old IBM branded operating system, OS/2.

I occasionally saw operating system abbreviated that way before OS/2 existed, and obviously OS/2 doesn't do that, so I am not inclined to believe there's a connection.

Re: The DNSSEC Root Signing Ceremony

#28

Post by toast0 »

deathanatos wrote: post #22
toast0 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DNS is already a a distributed chain of trust. I trust that the well know ftp site will give me a good hints file to get to the root servers. I trust that the root servers will provide me with the proper ns and glue records for the tld servers. I trust that the tld servers will provide the correct ns and glue records for the domain I want to resolve. DNSSEC just formalizes the trust with digital signatures. A traditi…

> A DS record doesn't indicate a connection between an organization and a domain though, which a traditional CA supposedly might. Only if you get an EV certificate, no? My understanding is that the only checks required for getting a normal certificate issued is to verify that the person holding the key that you're signing is in control of the domain. (Verified through methods such as setting particular DNS records, p…

Some of the certificates I've purchased have involved verifying some details of the organization, even though they weren't EV. I believe we needed a Dun and Bradstreet number when I got a certificate from Thawte in the late 90s (although I might be misremembering, something at that company needed that number...). And a more recent issuance wanted some other proof of existence / location, they had asked for a lease/utility bill, but issued with our location found in a state corporation database, before I could get a copy of something they would accept. I won't disclose the issuer of the recent cert, but I would put them in the top tier of reputation (and prices).

I would hope an EV process would do a better verification, but I've never needed an EV cert, so I don't know.

DNSSEC is sort of like verifying to everyone that you control the DNS, near the time of use, as opposed to just verifying to a CA at time of issuance. Or in other words, if it's OK for a CA to trust DNS, letting everyone else trust it would be good too.

At least the concept is right, 1024-bit rsa keys are kind of scary. And DNSSEC doesn't address confidentiality, but TLS with SNI also leaks hostnames.

Re: The DNSSEC Root Signing Ceremony

#29

Post by mjevans »

escape_goat wrote: post #18
scintill76 wrote: post #16

> The only way to move information from the outside world into the laptop/HSM is via USB drive. Accordingly, the key-signing request is loaded into the laptop via USB. Hmm, how sure are they that the OS only allows USB drives (as opposed to keyboards, network controllers, etc.), and contains no exploitable bugs? Is an image of the media the laptop was booted from publicly available, and has it been audited? I almost…

I too do not know enough to not feel silly for asking this, but I have a similar feeling, and I am not sure if I have misunderstood the past year's worth of popular articles on USB security, the risk posed by the USB in the context of the ceremony, or both. I had gotten the impression that the firmware vulnerabilities of USB flash drives had proven to be inherent, unavoidable, and utterly devastating; that, basically…

Couldn't you just use an actual device medium?

The fact that a burnable CD should have no parts that can think actually makes using one for input and one for output probably safer (though you would then need the trusted application to include a CD/DVD burning capability).

As an alternative, a 'raw' interface, such as an actual programmable flash device or maybe an SD card could work.

Re: The DNSSEC Root Signing Ceremony

#30

Post by cstuder »

jcox92 wrote: post #13

The Guardian did a piece on this last year including a video of part of the ceremony: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/28/seven-peop...

And fun anecdotes like:

  At 21.29, things go awry. A security controller slams the door of the safe shut, triggering a seismic sensor, which in turn triggers automatic door locks. The ceremony administrator and the keyholders are all locked in an 8ft square cage.
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