[deleted]
Intel In Bed with NSA?
41–50 of 73 posts
Re: Intel In Bed with NSA?
#42It is really, really hard for me to see this as anything other than utter paranoia. As one of the messages in the thread stated: > Right. How exactly would you backdoor an RNG so (a) it could be effectively used by the NSA when they needed it (e.g. to recover Tor keys), (b) not affect the security of massive amounts of infrastructure, and (c) be so totally undetectable that there'd be no risk of it causing a s tstorm…
> It is really, really hard for me to see this as anything other than utter paranoia. It is really really hard for me to imagine Intel not beeing 100% cooperative with the NSA.
There are only two X86 chip manufacturers of note. Intel and AMD both could tell the NSA to get bent.
Re: Intel In Bed with NSA?
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, it is documented that the NSA made DES weaker by using less bits for key size (this makes brute forcing easier). I aslo noted that Schiener's AES submission was passed over (I speculate that Rijndael is easier to brute force). The feds used to fight civilian crypto tooth and nail. Then they allowed it, and in one of the crypto books a story was related that the feds were bummed about RSA and friends. The listen…
> The feds used to fight civilian crypto tooth and nail. Curious. I'd like to read about this. Can anyone post any links?
Many developers that worked on crypto would cross the border into Canada to meet up and work on crypto to get around the export restrictions (crypto software was classified as a weapon; exporting it could get you the same punishment as exporting a missile).
Re: Intel In Bed with NSA?
#44[deleted]
Re: Intel In Bed with NSA?
#45Doesn't the NSA end up using these machines as well? It seems like a lot of work to introduce a flaw that you have work around for you own use later. And if it's a hardware flawu, I doubt even the NSA could demand intel or amd manyfacture seperate batches for their own use.
Re: Intel In Bed with NSA?
#46This issue just does not pass the rubber hose test. If the NSA wanted and got a backdoor in intel chips there are so many better ways to do it than introducing a bad hw rng. If you wanted one exploit in the chip, why would you pick a hard to exploit one and user controlled one on top of that? It's classic paranoid thinking: People have a choice to use the hw rng or not. So it becomes a big deal. All the while not add…
It also needs to be hard to detect and relevant specifically for crypto operations. So where would you put a backdoor on a chipset?
Re: Intel In Bed with NSA?
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It is really, really hard for me to see this as anything other than utter paranoia. It is really really hard for me to imagine Intel not beeing 100% cooperative with the NSA.
You know who else cooperates with the NSA? The Linux community. You know, that whole "SELinux" thing? Yeah, that's an NSA project. Turns out cooperating with the NSA doesn't automatically mean spying on the public, it could instead be hardening crypto security. Which is the NSA's other job, it turns out.
> You know, that whole "SELinux" thing?
You mean that damned monstrosity I always disable? You're claiming it's not a plot to make Linux utterly unusable?
Re: Intel In Bed with NSA?
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It is really, really hard for me to see this as anything other than utter paranoia. It is really really hard for me to imagine Intel not beeing 100% cooperative with the NSA.
There are only two X86 chip manufacturers of note. Intel and AMD both could tell the NSA to get bent.
The fact that there are few X86 chipmakers makes it more a problem. There are fewer arms for the NSA to twist.
Re: Intel In Bed with NSA?
#49It is really, really hard for me to see this as anything other than utter paranoia. As one of the messages in the thread stated: > Right. How exactly would you backdoor an RNG so (a) it could be effectively used by the NSA when they needed it (e.g. to recover Tor keys), (b) not affect the security of massive amounts of infrastructure, and (c) be so totally undetectable that there'd be no risk of it causing a s tstorm…
Definitely paranoia. If you want to believe NSA is spying trough your Intel system, they could do it trough vPro and not some RNG calculations. One might assume that NSA can easily tap into the built in VNC server[1] of the CPU.
[1] Computers with particular Intel® Core™ vPro™ processors enjoy the benefit of a VNC-compatible Server embedded directly onto the chip, enabling permanent remote access and control. A RealVNC collaboration with Intel's ground-breaking hardware has produced VNC Viewer Plus, able to connect even if the computer is powered off, or has no functioning operating system. http://www.vnc.com/products/viewerplus/
Re: Intel In Bed with NSA?
#50The comments about RdRand being impossible to verify because it's on-chip seem quite reasonable. (Although Intel have tried to be quite open about how it works. https://sites.google.com/site/intelrdrand/references ) I have no idea if RdRand is the only source of entropy for /dev/urandom in the kernel these days but that does seem quite silly. Especially as RdRand is documented as having two error conditions, not enou…
>I have no idea if RdRand is the only source of entropy for /dev/urandom in the kernel these days but that does seem quite silly If I understand correctly, the idea is to use RdRand to feed the entropy pool (which is also fed by other noise)[1] from which urandom pulls. So it doesn't seem RdRand would be the sole source of entropy if it were to be used in this context. [1] http://linux.die.net/man/4/urandom
Most servers do not have any serious source of randomness (unless you buy another hardware RNG) which is partly why these were introduced (Intel used to have a motherboard RNG, and VIA had on CPU ones years back).
You can buy one of these http://www.entropykey.co.uk/ which are unlikely to be NSA "certified" instead.