371–380 of 770 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just because OpenSSL had a CVE posted about today, that didn't mean we should go back to use HTTP for the web.
It does mean we should recognize that SSL is nice for some basic privacy/security, but not perfect security.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately the parent commenter is completely right. The attestation portion of those systems is happening on locked down devices, and if you gain ownership of the devices they no longer attest themselves. This is the curse of the duopoly of iOS and Android. BankID in Sweden will only run with one of these devices, they used to offer a card system but getting one seems to be impossible these days. So you're really…
as you say, a lot of this stuff is already happening. Won’t it be good to have a FOSS attestation stack that breaks the iOS/android duopoly?
The way you defeat things like that is through political maneuvering and guile rather than submission to their artificial narrative. Publish your own papers and documentation that recommends apps not support any device with that feature or require it to be off because it allows malware to use the feature to evade malware scans, etc. Or point out that it prevents devices with known vulnerabilities from being updated to third party firmware with the patch because the OEM stopped issuing patches but the more secure third party firmware can't sign an attestation, i.e. the device that can do the attestation is vulnerable and the device that can't is patched.
The way you break the duopoly is by getting open platforms that refuse to support it to have enough market share that they can't ignore it. And you have to solve that problem before they would bother supporting your system even if you did implement the treachery. Meanwhile implementing it makes your network effect smaller because then it only applies to the devices and configurations authorized to support it instead of every device that would permissionlessly and independently support ordinary open protocols with published specifications and no gatekeepers.
This seems like the kind of technology that could make the problem described in https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.en.html a lot worse. Do you have any plans for making sure it doesn't get used for that?
I'm Aleksa, one of the founding engineers. We will share more about this in the coming months but this is not the direction nor intention of what we are working on. The models we have in mind for attestation are very much based on users having full control of their keys. This is not just a matter of user freedom, in practice being able to do this is far more preferable for enterprises with strict security controls. I…
Anyway, "full control over your keys" isn't the issue, it's the way that normalization of this kind of attestation will enable corporations and governments to infringe on traditional freedoms and privacy. People in an autocratic state "have full control over" their identity papers, too.
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> Anonymous-attestation protocols are well known in cryptography, and some are standardized: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Anonymous_Attestation Which does exactly what I said. Full zero knowledge attestation isn't practical as a single compromised key would give rise to a service that would serve everyone. The solution first adopted by the TCG (TPM specification v1.1) required a trusted third-party, namely a…
I don't think that a 100% anonymous attestation protocol is what most people need and want. It would be sufficient to be able to freely choose who you trust as proxy for your attestations *and* the ability to modify that choice at any point later (i.e. there should be some interoperability). That can be your Google/Apple/Samsung ecosystem, your local government, a company operating in whatever jurisdiction you are co…
I.e. from when they buy from a trusted source and init the device.
This seems like the kind of technology that could make the problem described in https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.en.html a lot worse. Do you have any plans for making sure it doesn't get used for that?
I'm Aleksa, one of the founding engineers. We will share more about this in the coming months but this is not the direction nor intention of what we are working on. The models we have in mind for attestation are very much based on users having full control of their keys. This is not just a matter of user freedom, in practice being able to do this is far more preferable for enterprises with strict security controls. I…
PE or EIT?
People demonize attestation. They should keep in mind that far from enslaving users, attestation actually enables some interesting, user-beneficial software shapes that wouldn't be possible otherwise. Hear me out. Imagine you're using a program hosted on some cloud service S. You send packets over the network; gears churn; you get some results back. What are the problems with such a service? You have no idea what S i…
"Trust us" is never a good idea with profit seeking founders. Especially ones who come from a culture that generally hates the hacker spirit and general computing.
You basically wrote a whole narrative of things that could be. But the team is not even willing to make promises as big as yours. Their answers were essentially just "trust us we're cool guys" and "don't worry, money will work out" wrapped in average PR speak.
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> I've been a FOSS guy my entire adult life, I wouldn't put my name to something that would enable the kinds of issues you describe. Until you get acquired, receive a golden parachute and use it when realizing that the new direction does not align with your views anymore. But, granted, if all you do is FOSS then you will anyway have a hard time keeping evil actors from using your tech for evil things. Might as well g…
You could tell this sort of insinuation to anyone. Including you. Argument should be technical.
This seems like the kind of technology that could make the problem described in https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.en.html a lot worse. Do you have any plans for making sure it doesn't get used for that?
This seems like the kind of technology that could make the problem described in https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.en.html a lot worse. Do you have any plans for making sure it doesn't get used for that?
I'm Aleksa, one of the founding engineers. We will share more about this in the coming months but this is not the direction nor intention of what we are working on. The models we have in mind for attestation are very much based on users having full control of their keys. This is not just a matter of user freedom, in practice being able to do this is far more preferable for enterprises with strict security controls. I…
I can understand corporate use case - the person with access to the machine is not its owner, and corporation may want to ensure their property works the way they expect it to be. Not something I care about, personally.
But when it’s a person using their own property, I don’t quite get the practical value of attestation. It’s not a security mechanism anymore (protecting a person from themselves is an odd goal), and it has significant abuse potential. That happened to mobile, and the outcome was that users were “protected” from themselves, that is - in less politically correct words - denied effective control over their personal property, as larger entities exercised their power and gated access to what became de-facto commonplace commodities by forcing to surrender any rights. Paired with awareness gap the effects were disastrous, and not just for personal compute.
So, what’s the point and what’s the value?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've been a FOSS guy my entire adult life, I wouldn't put my name to something that would enable the kinds of issues you describe. Until you get acquired, receive a golden parachute and use it when realizing that the new direction does not align with your views anymore. But, granted, if all you do is FOSS then you will anyway have a hard time keeping evil actors from using your tech for evil things. Might as well g…
You could tell this sort of insinuation to anyone. Including you. Argument should be technical.