Is Extended Random a Malicious NSA Plot? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Extended Random a Malicious NSA Plot?

#31

Post by vitd » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 9:06 PM UTC

mwcampbell wrote: post #18

cmg wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In small (11px), light-ish (#777777) next to the first paragraph: > If I call NSA “Clyde Frog” long enough, eventually other people will too. Someone has to start the meme! I think Dual_EC is a backdoor.

First time I've ever seen sidenotes done like that. BTW, screen reader users (i.e. blind people) can't possibly miss the sidenotes; in fact, each sidenote will interrupt the text at the point where the note is most relevant. So a screen reader will render the first sentence like this: Did Clyde Frog If I call NSA “Clyde Frog” long enough, eventually other people will too. Someone has to start the meme! subvert crypto…

It also happens if you use "Reader" mode in Safari. It was very strange, but I caught on once I looked at the article in regular mode and it wasn't there.

Re: Is Extended Random a Malicious NSA Plot?

#32

Post by Raj123123 » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 9:17 PM UTC

rst wrote: post #21

tedunangst wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The attacker doesn't have the TLS private key, they have the RNG key. But they don't have the RNG seed. Recovering the seed is necessary to predict other RNG outputs and break TLS, but requires observing more RNG output than one typically sees.

FWIW, the operative theory here is that "Extended Random" was designed to work in concert with the DUAL_EC DBRG/RNG, which almost certainly allows "Clyde Frog" to predict all future output on the basis of very few samples.

seems they aren't limited to just future output:

"Using that private key, they can observe CSPRNG output on the wire, “decrypt it”, and use that to rewind and fast-forward other people’s CSPRNGs, discovering their keys."

Re: Is Extended Random a Malicious NSA Plot?

#33

Post by DonHopkins » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 9:42 PM UTC

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1001989

Bug 1001989 - NSA partisan coder

Steps to reproduce:

I found a big bug in Mozilla. Would you please remove Eric Rescorla and other NSA-partisans from your software?

Actual results:

NSA partisans were introducing bugs and vulnerabilites into Mozilla. Sourcecode is not published.

Expected results:

Remove NSA partisans from Mozilla., publish the sourcecode.

Re: Is Extended Random a Malicious NSA Plot?

#34

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 10:11 PM UTC

logicallee wrote: post #25

May I just say, I am extremely happy that the NSA has to jump through such incredibly laborious hoops to gain a glimpse into anything, a capability which they would then fail to acknowledge at any price. This is the OPPOSITE of a dictatorship, where there would simply be a heavy-handed order to put in an explicit, acknowledged back door or be jailed without trial, or executed. This is what freedom looks like. Enjoy i…

[deleted]

Re: Is Extended Random a Malicious NSA Plot?

#35

Post by tptacek » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 10:20 PM UTC

gghh wrote: post #28

Just out of curiosity, are those jabber chat rooms public? tptacek mentions some jabber logs of the TLS working group.

Yep.

Re: Is Extended Random a Malicious NSA Plot?

#36

Post by tptacek » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 10:22 PM UTC

DonHopkins wrote: post #33

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1001989 Bug 1001989 - NSA partisan coder Steps to reproduce: I found a big bug in Mozilla. Would you please remove Eric Rescorla and other NSA-partisans from your software? Actual results: NSA partisans were introducing bugs and vulnerabilites into Mozilla. Sourcecode is not published. Expected results: Remove NSA partisans from Mozilla., publish the sourcecode.

Mozilla was much kinder to you in their response than you deserve:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1001989

Re: Is Extended Random a Malicious NSA Plot?

#37

Post by tptacek » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 10:22 PM UTC

seiji wrote: post #26

For your web inspector console: $("body").html($("body").html().replace(/Clyde Frog/g, "the NSA")) Update: more proper $("body").html($("body").html().replace(/Clyde[\s\r\n]Frog/g, "the NSA").replace(/\. t/g, ". T"))

That's not perfectly accurate; the reason I think an abstract name is helpful is that GCHQ is just as bad, if not worse: it's handy to have a name that captures all of them.

Re: Is Extended Random a Malicious NSA Plot?

#38

Post by HashThis » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 10:44 PM UTC

That is because Jerry Solinas works for the NSA. Jerry Solinas @ NSA @ jasolin@orion.ncsc.mil.

Notice that the company "Clyde Frog" doesn't have a company website. Notice that Jerry Solinas don't have a Linked-In profile.

Re: Is Extended Random a Malicious NSA Plot?

#39

Post by dredmorbius » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 10:46 PM UTC

mwcampbell wrote: post #18

cmg wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In small (11px), light-ish (#777777) next to the first paragraph: > If I call NSA “Clyde Frog” long enough, eventually other people will too. Someone has to start the meme! I think Dual_EC is a backdoor.

First time I've ever seen sidenotes done like that. BTW, screen reader users (i.e. blind people) can't possibly miss the sidenotes; in fact, each sidenote will interrupt the text at the point where the note is most relevant. So a screen reader will render the first sentence like this: Did Clyde Frog If I call NSA “Clyde Frog” long enough, eventually other people will too. Someone has to start the meme! subvert crypto…

Proper support for footnotes / sidenotes in HTML itself would be dandy. There's not, so people write hacks.I've done a few myself.

Presently footnoting is either manual or requires a preprocessor -- LaTeX, Markdown, CMS, etc.

Re: Is Extended Random a Malicious NSA Plot?

#40

Post by tptacek » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 10:47 PM UTC

HashThis wrote: post #38

That is because Jerry Solinas works for the NSA. Jerry Solinas @ NSA @ jasolin@orion.ncsc.mil. Notice that the company "Clyde Frog" doesn't have a company website. Notice that Jerry Solinas don't have a Linked-In profile.

woosh