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The author isn't implying that the NSA intentionally injected the word "PRISM" into the header of every HTTP/2 connection. Rather, that the members of the IETF
by kcorbitt 11y ago
The author isn't implying that the NSA intentionally injected the word "PRISM" into the header of every HTTP/2 connection. Rather, that the members of the IETF that collaborated on the standard chose to change the existing dummy text to match those initials once the existence of the program was leaked to the public, presumably as a sort of inside joke/protest.
^ I figure I'd clarify that in case anyone else gets as confused as I did about what possible political or technical objectives the NSA might achieve by including a reference to a top-secret spy program in every HTTP/2 message (although it does seem like the sort of thing a comic-book evil intelligence organization would do :P).
- platz 11y agoIt seems like the thing an immature boy would do, but hey it just HTTP/2 protocol, no harm done!
- antimagic 11y agoI downvoted you, but I thought I'd explain why - I don't think it's reasonable to characterise this as childish. Government surveillance is something which our industry is the best positioned to speak out against. This type of thing seems to be clearly political speech, and not a prank.
- eevilspock 11y agoApparently Feynman is pretty "childish" too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10650175 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10650175
- smrq 11y agoI don't think Feynman would have disagreed with that.
- Lawtonfogle 11y agoIt also is something that really hurts our industry, perhaps more so than any other industry out there. Edit: To be clear, I mean the spying hurts our industry.
- hobs 11y agoLegit question, why?(in this case) If you mean general lack of professionalism, sure, but in this case encoding this as a matter of protest seems appropriate.
- saganus 11y agoGenuine question, how does it really hurt our industry? You mean because "outsiders" will see us as childish or for some technical reason?
- Lawtonfogle 11y agoI meant the spying hurts our industry as those who buy IT services lose trust in the confidentiality of their data.
- rand334 11y agoYes; the entirety of our internet infrastructure is...almost...hopelessly insecure. The OpenSSL team refuses to even use SSL/TLS on their website because "they don't want anyone to get the slightest illusion that it's secure" and want everyone to manually verify the SHA hashes.
- bdamm 11y agoHave they posted their concerns regarding SSL/TLS? It would make interesting reading. I am assuming the issue is the certificate issuance hierarchy and correspondent lack of transparency, but that's just a guess.
- oldmanjay 11y agoOf course if those hashes are also served via plaintext, then comparing them also doesn't matter, and using them as verification is akin to praying to not be compromised
- mbrutsch 11y ago> This type of thing seems to be clearly political speech So it's your assertion that a thing cannot be both "childish" and "political speech" at the same time?
- gozo 11y agoAs part of the in-group I can think it's kind of funny in a "stick it to the man" kind of way. But considering that much of what let's the NSA do what it does is because of the failure of organizations like the IETF (and bystanders like ourselves not to put more pressure on them) to make secure technologies prevalent, it's not that funny anymore. This is exactly what the NSA wants. That you feel like you're on the right side and "sticking it to the man" while they laugh all the way to their long term data storage.
- krapp 11y agoIt might be political speech, but it's also childish. What is it intended to accomplish? What is the actual statement being made, and who is the intended audience? Not the government - they already know what PRISM is. Also not the common internet user. If it had the potential to be effective at influencing or censoring political dialogue, I would be upset at the attempt to bake propaganda (however sympathetic the tech community might be to it) into what should be a politically neutral protocol. But it does seem more like a prank than anything else.
- nmc 11y agoIf IETF members were all immature boys, the Internet (along with many other things) would probably be a lot worst than it is today.
- tptacek 11y agoI disagree! I think there's a pretty good case to be made that if the IETF is not in fact comprised of immature hobbyists, its overall behavior is well described by a reversion to that lowest common denominator. There are some great IETF success stories (mostly from a long time ago), but most of the best IETF products are the result of forceful and expert engineering done by just one or two people, carefully documented. You can see how much better that kind of work is than the IETF collaborative process by looking at the v2's and v3's of standards that started out the other way. It's not a crazy observation to make. Think about the culture of heavily-engaged Wikipedia volunteers. Wikipedia is an amazing resource, probably the most impressive thing on the entire Internet, but most HN commenters would have no trouble calling it out for immaturity, insularity, and frivolity.
- X-Istence 11y agoYou disagree with the statement: > If IETF members were all immature boys, [...] and then you go on to make a point that agrees with OP, pointing out that IETF members are very mature engineers that are trying to solve hard problems.
- tptacek 11y agoNo. You've misread me. I do not like the IETF, and feel like even though there are lots of well-intentioned and highly-competent engineers working within it, its process and current overall membership produces results that are sometimes indistinguishable from "immature hobbyists". Specifically, I think the argument that the success of the modern Internet is evidence that the IETF is "mature" is dubious and worth debating. (Hey: just to be totally clear: I do not think the string "PRISM" is evidence of immaturity.)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- methehack 11y agoIt's called "satire". It's truth speaking to power. BTW, "I'm rubber and you're glue..." Updated: And what's gender got to do with it?
- tedunangst 11y ago"Martin" is usually a boy's name.
- jsprogrammer 11y agoWouldn't including a constant block at the beginning of every message of the plaintext help to break any ciphertext generated from the plaintext?
- bascule 11y agoNo, secure ciphers like AES are not vulnerable to known plaintext attacks
- tptacek 11y agoHold on. AES is not intrinsically vulnerable to known-plaintext, like every modern cipher probably going back all the way to DES, but that doesn't mean AES constructions can't be attacked through known plaintext runs. This particular text isn't a vulnerability (after all, HTTP is full of known plaintext), but I think you've overplayed your argument. :)
- logicallee 11y agoyeah, if knowing the leading 192 bits of the plaintext (24 octets, per article) lets an attacker break a session encrypted with 256-bit AES, you've got bigger problems than a known-plaintext attack, methinks. :)
- jsprogrammer 11y agoThis may be true for a single session, but it would seem that having every session begin with the same long text could allow correlations to be drawn on large data sets, potentially leading to full recovery of the sessions. Do you know of the proof that rules out such a possibility?
- logicallee 11y agono of course I don't know such a proof. But I wouldn't say 192 bits is long, in any case! It's absolutely tiny.