They already paid $100,000 for finding flaws in their system before:
$300k for Cracking Telegram Encryption
41–50 of 94 posts
Re: $300k for Cracking Telegram Encryption
#42Obligatory: https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-9812.html $300,000 isn't a whole lot more than it would cost to get n entire novel cryptosystem for a complex application built out of idiosyncratic components assessed professionally. They should just retain Riscure or Rambus to do that for them instead of the PR stunt. Previous thread about Telegram on HN, featuring Moxie Marlinspike: https://news.ycombinator.com/ite…
OTOH it is enough money to get a few interested amateurs going at it I would think. Not that it proves anything very much if it's not claimed.
It's even counter-productive:
If I find a few small flaws that are problematic, but not enough to claim the prize, I'll definitely keep them to myself until the contest ends. Instead of incentivizing people to share vulnerabilities with them, they incentivize hoarding bugs.
Re: $300k for Cracking Telegram Encryption
#43Re: $300k for Cracking Telegram Encryption
#44Obligatory: https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-9812.html $300,000 isn't a whole lot more than it would cost to get n entire novel cryptosystem for a complex application built out of idiosyncratic components assessed professionally. They should just retain Riscure or Rambus to do that for them instead of the PR stunt. Previous thread about Telegram on HN, featuring Moxie Marlinspike: https://news.ycombinator.com/ite…
" The best products/systems/protocols/algorithms available today have not been the subjects of any contests, and probably never will be." No? Doesn't this fit the definition of a contest? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryption_Standard_pr... Yes, the fairness of the contest plays an important part, and a fair context where only the algorithm is analysed goes a long way. "Just because no one wins a contest d…
No, you're playing a semantic game with the word "contest" here. The AES competition was a tournament designed to select the best candidate from a collection of ciphers submitted by the world's best cryptographers.
The Twofish bounty was a bounty that guaranteed payment to the best technical critique of a very specific, well-defined cryptographic primitive.
Re: $300k for Cracking Telegram Encryption
#45Re: $300k for Cracking Telegram Encryption
#46When I see contests like this, my first thought always goes to "But do they really have the money to pay me if I figured it out." For big prize payout contests, I'd get a lot more serious if they provided proof that the funds were waiting in escrow until end-date/winner. But I'm probably unnecessarily suspicious of the depth of a startup's pockets...
It's not a 'startup'. It's a project by the founders of VK, and they surely have deep pockets.
Re: $300k for Cracking Telegram Encryption
#47Maybe restating the obvious, but why don't they pay out the 300k to some professional pen testers or cryptography auditors and publish the results. At least then they would have a shot at validity in this area.
They could do that: Pay $300k for professionals to maybe or maybe not find something, and get limited PR
Or, what they do now: Get good PR and if someone manages to win the competition, it means they found flaws which the pros would, hopefully, also have found. If no one wins, they can then use the $300k to get pros on it. Win-win if you ask me.
Re: $300k for Cracking Telegram Encryption
#48Obligatory: https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-9812.html $300,000 isn't a whole lot more than it would cost to get n entire novel cryptosystem for a complex application built out of idiosyncratic components assessed professionally. They should just retain Riscure or Rambus to do that for them instead of the PR stunt. Previous thread about Telegram on HN, featuring Moxie Marlinspike: https://news.ycombinator.com/ite…
$300,000 is nothing to sneeze at. I imagine someone could hack chat clients, extract private keys and claim the price.
Under the rules of the challenge, that isn't possible since the "clients" aren't real and its just a bot they wrote. :P
All you are getting is the over-the-wire exchanges which makes it kinda a joke.
The part that is actually vulnerable to attack is the way the client functions and handles keys.
MitMing after a key exchange isn't helpful since its like getting the PGP text after its encrypted. You have to brute force the keys at that point.
Re: $300k for Cracking Telegram Encryption
#49This contest is only valid if they provide access to their servers and databases. They will never prove, this way, that Telegram cannot crack itself.
Re: $300k for Cracking Telegram Encryption
#50Obligatory: https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-9812.html $300,000 isn't a whole lot more than it would cost to get n entire novel cryptosystem for a complex application built out of idiosyncratic components assessed professionally. They should just retain Riscure or Rambus to do that for them instead of the PR stunt. Previous thread about Telegram on HN, featuring Moxie Marlinspike: https://news.ycombinator.com/ite…
Also relevant since the way the clients compare keys is sha-1:
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/10/when_will_we_... "211 * 28.4 = 219.4 ~ $700K by 2015"
The cost of brute forcing the answer is greater than the prize for the contest.
"This can happen if a security check is failed, or in the case that the first 128 bits of the SHA-1 of the newly created encryption key don‘t match on both parties’ clients when this stage is completed (this corresponds to Paul and Nick comparing the key visualizations for the Secret Chat in their Telegram apps)."