Linux port of signify:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/slackdepot/files/signify/
Files signified on OpenBSD will verify on Linux and vice versa.
Signify: Securing OpenBSD from Us to You
81–88 of 88 posts
Re: Signify: Securing OpenBSD from Us to You
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have the misfortune of having encrypted some files in the past with PGP. At the time, the default algorithm appeared to be IDEA which was removed since for patent reasons. Find the old sources and getting it to built is not trivial. These days I'm leaning towards bundling encrypted files along with the C code that encrypted it and that works better if the latter is small and self-contained.
That's a very interesting concept of a cross-platform self-unpacking archive. Unfortunately it requires the C compiler binary which is missing on the Windows platform out of the box. Perhaps some kind of tiny C compiler or interpreter windows binary might be bundled along for 99% compatibility.
I know that the RAR format, for one, effectively embeds the compensating decompression program for whatever it did into the archive, in the form of some bytecode for a VM with an ABI that has been stable since RAR was created. So RAR has actually been a bunch of different algorithms over time, but unrar(1) doesn't need to care; it just runs the embedded program in its VM. (Most exciting fact: this means that older versions of the program can decompress archives created by newer versions, using algorithms that didn't exist at the time the older version shipped!)
It would definitely be possible to do the equivalent for encryption. The main problem† being that while compression algorithms get outmoded, encryption algorithms break. This is true of all encryption, but it's especially scary when you can just scan a disk and signature-identify crackable files by the embedded algorithm.
So, if you were going to do something like this, you'd probably want a higher-level abstraction than "self-describing encrypted file"; maybe something more like a "self-describing encrypted mutable volume." Mutable so that it would (hopefully) get an update() operation called on it at least every so often (even if just from a fsck-during-mount), letting it start a background process to change out an old-and-broken backing-store encryption algorithm for a new-and-trusted one (think of how bcrypt handles strength changes.)
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† There's also the performance problem: if you have a stable ABI, and it was frozen 20 years ago, how would you ever do something like elliptic-curve operations efficiently? Heck, doesn't using a frozen ABI mean you couldn't make use of a modern processor's native instructions for RSA ciphering et al?
The answer to this, I think, is VM-runtime instruction-level pattern-recognition ala urbit's "jets". The new version of the encryption program would prepend a program for the stable ABI, that tells the old version how to (inefficiently) implement elliptic-curve decryption in terms of things it understands. However, running this program against a new version of the decryption VM would recognize the signature/pattern of "what elliptic-curve decryption instructions encoded in [this VM]'s ABI" looks like, and execute a native procedure with the same preconditions and postconditions as that instruction-sequence instead. Sort of like typehints for a JIT, but where the instruction-sequences themselves are the hints, since they have canonical forms.
Re: Signify: Securing OpenBSD from Us to You
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
See https://www.nsa.gov/business/programs/quick_facts.shtml for the ECC patent license agreement. It appears to be free, but your use needs to pass some fairly specific restrictions. Not sure if the PLA is available at any cost if your use does not pass.
You do not need a patent license to use ECDH or ECDSA on a NIST P-curve, nor do you need one to negotiate keys with Curve25519 or to sign with Ed25519. This covers more or less everything a normal developer would ever do with elliptic curves. Is there some wacky curve nobody uses that is patent-encumbered, or for which the point multiplication formula is based on patented math code? Maybe. Is there some wacky protoco…
Sure, I'm with you there. I was surprised to learn that NSA held patents at all.
It looks like NSA bought their ECC patents (the ones they license on the forelinked ECC PLA page) from Certicom. I'm still confused as to why NSA would buy a portfolio of patents and then license them restrictively (albeit at no cost).
Just seems a weird thing for a govt agency to do. Not suspicious or nefarious. Just weird.
Re: Signify: Securing OpenBSD from Us to You
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Along with a warning that the key didn't have others' signatures on it, which ironically re-assured me more because it shouldn't. You have stated in other comments that you don't fully understand the web of trust concept - I'd go a little bit further and, based on the above, say that you haven't a slightest clue about it.
> you haven't a slightest clue No personal swipes, please.
How is this personal?
I'm not trying to insult anyone, it's a mere statement of a fact - the OP hasn't a slightest clue about web of trust, subkeys, key-signing, etc. and he clearly demonstrated it in several comments. In those he spreads misinformation and FUD - and those are signs of a troll. So if I say "you haven't a slightest clue" to such an individual, I'm being polite.
Good day.
Re: Signify: Securing OpenBSD from Us to You
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Along with a warning that the key didn't have others' signatures on it, which ironically re-assured me more because it shouldn't. You have stated in other comments that you don't fully understand the web of trust concept - I'd go a little bit further and, based on the above, say that you haven't a slightest clue about it.
There's a good reason for that, actually. Besides, it doesn't matter how long ago I went to key-signing parties and such. The number of people I know using PGP I can count on one hand, maybe two. I have reliable channels to them to get keys. Web of trust is useless to me and despite my poor memory I can remember debating people about its many weaknesses even back when we did it a lot. Modern tech has moved on to more…
I meant the whole thing - subkeys, their very purpose (even CAs use subkeys to sign certificats!) or usage, etc.
Seems a bit strange for security researcher - that's all.
Re: Signify: Securing OpenBSD from Us to You
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a semi-clarification. You brought up foundational patents and NSA patents in a dismissal form. You didn't acknowledge any patent risk on ECC, the gist of my comment, at all. Anyone reading your comment would think there was no patent risk much like the other commenters. Might have not been your intention. Far as open source, the BSD licenses are used in part to encourage proprietary adoption of superior techno…
You keep using the words "ECC patents" as if they meant something. If you used the term "computer patents", your comments would be semantically identical. Key agreement based on the elliptic curve discrete log problem isn't patented. Straightforward, efficient point multiplication for elliptic curves --- the foundation of the ECDLP --- is not patented. The the DLP-based DSA algorithm, which was invented at NSA, is no…
^ What he said, the only relevant patents expired long ago.
Re: Signify: Securing OpenBSD from Us to You
#87See this follow-up as well "Ted Unangst: signify shortcomings":
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9721737
Re: Signify: Securing OpenBSD from Us to You
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a good reason for that, actually. Besides, it doesn't matter how long ago I went to key-signing parties and such. The number of people I know using PGP I can count on one hand, maybe two. I have reliable channels to them to get keys. Web of trust is useless to me and despite my poor memory I can remember debating people about its many weaknesses even back when we did it a lot. Modern tech has moved on to more…
I meant the whole thing - subkeys, their very purpose (even CAs use subkeys to sign certificats!) or usage, etc. Seems a bit strange for security researcher - that's all.
Lost much of my memory in an accident where I took severe head injury. What my brain kept it kept. What it didn't it didn't. Most stuff I hadn't used in forever went poof. Web of trust model was one of those. Some things I'd just have to straight up relearn and I'm not bothering unless I have a need given only so much memory to spare.
Hope that makes sense.