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Google's end-to-end key distribution proposal

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Re: Google's end-to-end key distribution proposal

#51

Interesting. It has bugged me for some time that if the Web of Trust was bigger, it could grow exponentially and become universal: once someone you personally know has entered you into the WoT, you can be trusted and can trust others based on a number of public signatures on their public key. However, currently the WoT is so sparse that you cannot do this. My idea was to use the existing web TLS platform to bootstrap…

Your server is already publishing a public key - in the certificate. "Humans" at the CA verified it.

What you're really arguing for is some army of volunteer CAs to do it (this is the WoT model summed up). However verifying identities is not fun, takes knowledge and skill to defend your private keys, and in the absence of payment will attract only a tiny number of uber-geeks who think the word "party" is a reasonable word to describe a bulk ID verification ceremony ;) This is why the WoT is a bust and nobody developing new crypto systems cares about it anymore.

Re: Google's end-to-end key distribution proposal

#52
post #49
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, basically, I can tell my bank/credit agency/hospital "please forget that I got a mortgage/defaulted/tested positive for HIV"? Doesn't that sound rather risky?

It's not that simple (in the UK at least), you only have to stop processing information if "unwarranted and substantial damage or distress" is being caused.

Additionally, all stop processing / deletion regulations require a court order, which will be subject to all the usual requirements of justice.

Re: Google's end-to-end key distribution proposal

#53
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What statement did Google make, regarding PRISM, that was a lie? And what evidence caused them to get caught?

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-ceo-larry-page-issues-sta... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-... http://gizmodo.com/confirmed-nsa-paid-google-microsoft-other... They are lying through their teeth. As you should know skj, being a google employee.

What is the actual lie?

Re: Google's end-to-end key distribution proposal

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't implying any trust in google on my part (I didn't trust them even before PRISM, but that shut the door on the chance of my ever trusting them again), and chances are this will never progress beyond a draft spec, but there isn't any real way to implement something like this without doing so. the NSA would find the block chain of this helpful, yes, but it isn't data they don't already have unless it is somehow…

Thats how google works. Piecemeal. You think loon was about internet for the poor and oppressed ? Thats just how they get their foot in the door. Im sure google just wanted to write a draft spec for the fun of it. Google is a front for US intelligence. We should give no quarter. Shun them.

At the risk of sounding like a fanboy apologist, I must say you're making a lot of serious accusations against a one of the most benevolent company in the history of mankind. Some serious evidence should follow.

Picking on Project Loon... come on, is there anything Google could do that you wouldn't immediately label as evil forefront of US intelligence?

Re: Google's end-to-end key distribution proposal

#55

The first comment by Mailpile seems to highlight the biggest problem to me: >Hello! Bjarni from the Mailpile team here. >This is an interesting proposal and sounds like a significant improvement over the current centralized key-server model. >The main quibble I have with it, is it seems there's no concern given to the privacy of user's communications - the proposed gossip mechanism seems designed to indiscriminately…

Can you elaborate on how the gossip mechanism reveals who you are communicating with?

From my understanding (which obviously could be off) what is sent with the gossip protocol is a verification of the entire key directory, similar to a git commit hash.

Re: Google's end-to-end key distribution proposal

#56
"The model of a key server with a transparency backend is based on the premise that a user is willing to trust the security of a centralized service, as long as it is subject to public scrutiny, and that can be easily discovered if it's compromised (so it is still possible to compromise the user's account, but the user will be able to know that as soon as possible)."

So it's a central service where we can - eventually - find out if a key changes or is invalid, though not necessarily if anyone just breaks into the service. An attacker can still break in and monitor authentications to gather intel on users. Or they can automate an attack such that the keys are compromised and the attacker gets the access they want while you're asleep at 3am.

"a Monitor could notify the user whenever a key is rotated, and the user should be given a chance to revoke the key, and rotate it once again."

Now the user needs to see this e-mail about their key getting rotated, realize it's a compromise, issue a new rotation, and hope nothing bad happened in the meantime.

"making it so hard to hide a compromised key directory, it would almost require shutting down all internet access to the targeted victim."

This is completely within the scope of many different types of attacks used today, though often you only have to limit it to specific servers.

"The model envisioned in this document still relies on users being able to keep their account secure (against phishing for example) and their devices secure (against malware for example), and simply provides an easy-to-use key discovery mechanism on top of the user's existing account. For users with special security needs, we simply recommend they verify fingerprints manually, and we might make that easier in the future (with video or chat for example)."

So it really is just a PGP keyserver. For users who care about security, do something else to make yourselves more secure.

Re: Google's end-to-end key distribution proposal

#57

Interesting. It has bugged me for some time that if the Web of Trust was bigger, it could grow exponentially and become universal: once someone you personally know has entered you into the WoT, you can be trusted and can trust others based on a number of public signatures on their public key. However, currently the WoT is so sparse that you cannot do this. My idea was to use the existing web TLS platform to bootstrap…

Your server is already publishing a public key - in the certificate. "Humans" at the CA verified it. What you're really arguing for is some army of volunteer CAs to do it (this is the WoT model summed up). However verifying identities is not fun, takes knowledge and skill to defend your private keys, and in the absence of payment will attract only a tiny number of uber-geeks who think the word "party" is a reasonable…

>> This is why the WoT is a bust and nobody developing new crypto systems cares about it anymore.

I think the real reason nobody cares about it is because it gives you actual privacy. There is no way to exploit it commercially. All they could get is that data went "from here to there" with no idea what was in it. Not even Google could target ads with that.

Re: Google's end-to-end key distribution proposal

#58
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-ceo-larry-page-issues-sta... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-... http://gizmodo.com/confirmed-nsa-paid-google-microsoft-other... They are lying through their teeth. As you should know skj, being a google employee.

What is the actual lie?

More to the point, what is the truth? Google leadership post 9/11 knew what "certifying" their communication systems meant and took the money to do it. Whether they knew that the program was named Prism is irrelevant, in my opinion.

Re: Google's end-to-end key distribution proposal

#59
post #58
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the actual lie?

More to the point, what is the truth? Google leadership post 9/11 knew what "certifying" their communication systems meant and took the money to do it. Whether they knew that the program was named Prism is irrelevant, in my opinion.

Google responds to legal requests for information. The whole PRISM scandal was indicating that the NSA had some kind of direct link into the databases themselves. This assertion is what Google denied, and still denies.

There's been a bit of a wandering definition for PRISM, from "they have NSA software with root access to all machines!" to "they receive LEO requests for information, which they review, and sometimes fulfill." The former is untrue, and the latter is true.

Re: Google's end-to-end key distribution proposal

#60

The last people in the world you want managing your keys. Why don't you just send them directly to the NSA ?

As much as I generally distrust google with privacy when it comes to actually handing over data, in this case it's an open protocol that has just been drafted by google; anyone can run a server or make their own implementation. It also never touches private keys, only public. If you want a public key to have limited distribution, you don't put it on a keyserver, and instead only exchange it with the people you would…

Google would not give up the ability to see email content... maybe they would analyze them locally on your phone instead of on a remote server (that might even save them from buying a few server too)
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