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SecureDrop

schneier.com

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Re: SecureDrop

#21

Post by not_rhodey »

crb002 wrote: post #4
StavrosK wrote: post #2

Hmm, what security does this actually provide? It seems to me that it only secures materials from the server to the operators, but that's a really small part of it. Someone malicious with access to the server can just inject something to get the plaintext, no?

Documents are public key encrypted and you view them on an airgapped laptop. Submission server is on TOR to provide obfuscation of the transmission source. IMHO the system is over complicated. There should just be a client side HTML5 drag and drop that encrypts files pre-transmission. Should be symmetric so both source and journalist are reading messages on an airgapped laptop.

I'm inclined to agree with you, generally speaking simplicity is security. Also, I believe that the "secure JS in-browser crypto is impossible" argument is entirely bunk in this context-- people need to stop reciting this compulsively and take the time to think each situation through.

Realize that the SecureDrop document submission client is a web application. The browser of the document submitter will run whatever the SecureDrop Source Server provides it barring the edge case of the submitter verifying the source page source with GitHub before allowing JS in NoScript.

The security of the document submitter is already prone to compromise by way of a malicious web app provided by malicious Source Server or MITM. Moving the project to something more JS heavy on the client side would in no way worsen the threat model.

Re: SecureDrop

#22

Post by Goopplesoft »

danielweber wrote: post #20
danso wrote: post #19

The audit that Schneier participated in doesn't sound promising. These things stuck out to me: http://homes.cs.washington.edu/~aczeskis/research/pubs/UW-CS... > First, we experimented with leaking data to our DeadDrop deployment. We are not aware of the ways that actual leaked documents are submitted, but we assume that this way of leaking data is at least plausible. In this controlled test, the researchers found tha…

Is Schneier any good at auditing code? He has a big name but that's not my question.

Well he does have an extensive background in cryptography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Schneier#Cryptographic_al...

But more than that University of Washington and Jacob Applebaum (tor) participated (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum)

Re: SecureDrop

#23

Post by OvidNaso »

danielweber wrote: post #20
danso wrote: post #19

The audit that Schneier participated in doesn't sound promising. These things stuck out to me: http://homes.cs.washington.edu/~aczeskis/research/pubs/UW-CS... > First, we experimented with leaking data to our DeadDrop deployment. We are not aware of the ways that actual leaked documents are submitted, but we assume that this way of leaking data is at least plausible. In this controlled test, the researchers found tha…

Is Schneier any good at auditing code? He has a big name but that's not my question.

I don't know the answer, but don't forget that Schneier got his initial fame from writing Applied Cryptography.

Re: SecureDrop

#24

Post by rsync »

Can we rename the meme "war on whistleblowers" ?

When it is phrased like that, there's some ambiguity about the whistleblower ... since there could be good ones and bad ones. Further, a lot of folks may have been swayed by propaganda and believe that "whistleblower" is a negative term in all contexts.

I would like to suggest:

"war on transparency"

Cheers!

Re: SecureDrop

#26

Post by fsckin »

danso wrote: post #19

The audit that Schneier participated in doesn't sound promising. These things stuck out to me: http://homes.cs.washington.edu/~aczeskis/research/pubs/UW-CS... > First, we experimented with leaking data to our DeadDrop deployment. We are not aware of the ways that actual leaked documents are submitted, but we assume that this way of leaking data is at least plausible. In this controlled test, the researchers found tha…

>Protecting against this kind of info-leaking before using the app is outside of DeadDrop's purview of course

I don't think it is outside the purview of DeadDrop. It is a huge bug that MSOffice files, PDFs, images, etc. leak meta data to the journalist. Meta data can (and should) be stripped on the fly during upload and never logged.

Anonymity through obscurity is pointless if the journalist can be compelled to turn over original files (containing meta data) that could identify the source.

Re: SecureDrop

#27

Post by emiliobumachar »

fsckin wrote: post #26
danso wrote: post #19

The audit that Schneier participated in doesn't sound promising. These things stuck out to me: http://homes.cs.washington.edu/~aczeskis/research/pubs/UW-CS... > First, we experimented with leaking data to our DeadDrop deployment. We are not aware of the ways that actual leaked documents are submitted, but we assume that this way of leaking data is at least plausible. In this controlled test, the researchers found tha…

>Protecting against this kind of info-leaking before using the app is outside of DeadDrop's purview of course I don't think it is outside the purview of DeadDrop. It is a huge bug that MSOffice files, PDFs, images, etc. leak meta data to the journalist. Meta data can (and should) be stripped on the fly during upload and never logged. Anonymity through obscurity is pointless if the journalist can be compelled to turn…

Your parent mentions two issues. The one out of purview is when the whistleblower associates the topic to their identity before the leak, on the internet, in a way that may not draw attention at the time but stays registered forever.

Re: SecureDrop

#28

Post by dobbsbob »

danielweber wrote: post #20
danso wrote: post #19

The audit that Schneier participated in doesn't sound promising. These things stuck out to me: http://homes.cs.washington.edu/~aczeskis/research/pubs/UW-CS... > First, we experimented with leaking data to our DeadDrop deployment. We are not aware of the ways that actual leaked documents are submitted, but we assume that this way of leaking data is at least plausible. In this controlled test, the researchers found tha…

Is Schneier any good at auditing code? He has a big name but that's not my question.

His team created Skein and it was a NIST finalist for SHA3 so he obviously can audit code. He also I believe has a position this year at a university for a few months to work with students and their graduate projects in crypto engineering.

Re: SecureDrop

#30

Post by jarrett »

arca_vorago wrote: post #14
jarrett wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There should just be a client side HTML5 drag and drop that encrypts files pre-transmission. The problem is that you'd be doing crypto in JavaScript. We're not currently at a point where that's viable: http://www.matasano.com/articles/javascript-cryptography/ Currently, if you want to securely transmit a document, you're pretty much stuck with learning and using something like PGP/GPG. Which is a pain for a lot of…

I'm curious why more people aren't setting up dmz'd ssh servers on something like raspberry pi's for communication/document transfer with others. I wonder how viable a torrent like ssh p2p system would function... mumbles thoughts to self All I know is that PGP/GPG use can be a pita, and I've noticed fewer people who used to using it these days, which seems strange. (I thought the NSA revelations would have upped ado…

I'm not sure a P2P SSH system would be any better.

With SSH, you still need to manage and verify keys. This is where the PITA is with PGP. People don't like generating keys, fiddling with key rings, etc. So I don't see significant usability gains there.

Conceivably, you could do something with ephemeral keys, but then you're moving away from an SSH model. And ephemeral keys have their own problems. Namely, you have to verify the other person's key every time. (Often people use voice verification for this.) So while managing keyrings in PGP is annoying, so are ephemeral keys. I think crypto inherently imposes annoying burdens on end users.

Also, a big advantage with PGP is that it works asynchronously. I can send you a PGP-encrypted email, and your computer doesn't even have to be turned on at the time. With P2P, both parties have to be present and have their clients running at the same time.

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