6 ms·

Whenever I feel the need for a tin foil hat I start to wonder if there is a FUD campaign powered by the "establishment" to encourage people not to investigate t

by rijoja 9y ago

Whenever I feel the need for a tin foil hat I start to wonder if there is a FUD campaign powered by the "establishment" to encourage people not to investigate this area of computer science so that security holes will remain unnoticed. But, yes I wouldn't start out on writing a crypto library, then again I wouldn't attempt to build an OS or a 3D stack or even an web server either. All cases where a security breach could have devastating effects as well.

mrschwabe 9y ago
Another angle is that a compromised security protocol used by a 100,000 developers is far more fruitful than having to assign a human specialist to crack & reverse engineer 100,000 uniquely thought-out implementations.
- wolco 9y ago
  This is the point people miss. Same as wordpress vs creating your own blog. The more popular the software the larger the interest and the bigger exploit if successful.
  - arcticbull 9y ago
    It is less likely, though, and more likely to get fixed everywhere fast. 100,000 easy to crack implementations with obvious errors isn't really more secure than 1 super difficult, super well optimized/secured implementation, is it?
    - wolco 9y ago
      It is more difficult to crack 100,000 different interfaces because the time required to learn each one is a fixed cost. Having one central implementation makes it much easier to expliot because if an issue is discovered it can be immediately used everywhere. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
    - calafrax 9y ago
      > more likely to get fixed everywhere fast openssl bugs were around for a very long time
- calafrax 9y ago
  exactly. a very shitty unique implementation is much less likely to be hacked than a near bulletproof implementation used by millions with a single flaw.
baby 9y ago
Writing your own crypto is the only way to become good at it, or to understand more about crypto. * DJB wrote NaCl * Frank wrote libsodium / libHydrogen * Brian wrote Ring * Thai Duong and Bleichenbacher wrote Tink * Eric Young wrote OpenSSL * Jason Donenfeld wrote Wireguard * Shoup wrote NTL * Emily Stark, Mike Hamburg and Dan Boneh wrote SJCL * Thomas Pornin wrote 6 SSL libraries and then BearSSL * Adam Langley wrote everything else * ...
- raesene6 9y ago
  oh man, making that list and leaving out the bear....
  - baby 9y ago
    shame on me, I edited the list.
- tptacek 9y ago
  This is a deeply misleading list. Daniel Bernstein, Daniel Bleichenbacher, Dan Boneh and Thomas Pornin are professional cryptographers and world-renowned experts. Even I would feel comfortable writing crypto if Bleichenbacher was watching behind my back. Frank "wrote" libsodium, but libsodium is effectively a port of NaCl. Frank had Daniel Bernstein watching behind his back. Eric Young wrote OpenSSL. Look how that turned out! Has there been a class of cryptographic vulnerability that OpenSSL hasn't had? And yet consider: for all the effort that people like Bernstein and Boneh put into writing strong, safe crypto, the entire world has blundered into vulnerability after vulnerability because the amateurish crypto in OpenSSL is the one every else ended up using. It's as if you set out to prove my point. Finally: you obviously know that "writing your own crypto" isn't the only way to become good at it. In fact, it's a terrible way to get good at it. The right way to get good at crypto is to learn how to break it. But that takes effort, and you can have a blog post crowing about your new crypto library just a few weeks after deciding to write one.
  - baby 9y ago
    > are professional cryptographers and world-renowned experts They were not in the beginning. And implementing crypto helped them get there. That's my point. > Finally: you obviously know that "writing your own crypto" isn't the only way to become good at it. In fact, it's a terrible way to get good at it. The right way to get good at crypto is to learn how to break it. I strongly disagree with you on this, but I'll add a twist: I'm mostly saying to become good in "applied" crypto you must roll your own. There are too many problems you can't understand until you actually write code and try to make it secure. If you want to become good in theoretical crypto, then don't roll your own obviously. This works in any field btw. The best web pentesters are the people who have implemented websites on their own as well.

by rijoja 9y ago

mrschwabe 9y ago

Another angle is that a compromised security protocol used by a 100,000 developers is far more fruitful than having to assign a human specialist to crack & reverse engineer 100,000 uniquely thought-out implementations.

wolco 9y ago
This is the point people miss. Same as wordpress vs creating your own blog. The more popular the software the larger the interest and the bigger exploit if successful.
- arcticbull 9y ago
  It is less likely, though, and more likely to get fixed everywhere fast. 100,000 easy to crack implementations with obvious errors isn't really more secure than 1 super difficult, super well optimized/secured implementation, is it?
  - wolco 9y ago
    It is more difficult to crack 100,000 different interfaces because the time required to learn each one is a fixed cost. Having one central implementation makes it much easier to expliot because if an issue is discovered it can be immediately used everywhere. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
  - calafrax 9y ago
    > more likely to get fixed everywhere fast openssl bugs were around for a very long time
calafrax 9y ago
exactly. a very shitty unique implementation is much less likely to be hacked than a near bulletproof implementation used by millions with a single flaw.

baby 9y ago

Writing your own crypto is the only way to become good at it, or to understand more about crypto. * DJB wrote NaCl * Frank wrote libsodium / libHydrogen * Brian wrote Ring * Thai Duong and Bleichenbacher wrote Tink * Eric Young wrote OpenSSL * Jason Donenfeld wrote Wireguard * Shoup wrote NTL * Emily Stark, Mike Hamburg and Dan Boneh wrote SJCL * Thomas Pornin wrote 6 SSL libraries and then BearSSL * Adam Langley wrote everything else * ...

raesene6 9y ago
oh man, making that list and leaving out the bear....
- baby 9y ago
  shame on me, I edited the list.
tptacek 9y ago
This is a deeply misleading list. Daniel Bernstein, Daniel Bleichenbacher, Dan Boneh and Thomas Pornin are professional cryptographers and world-renowned experts. Even I would feel comfortable writing crypto if Bleichenbacher was watching behind my back. Frank "wrote" libsodium, but libsodium is effectively a port of NaCl. Frank had Daniel Bernstein watching behind his back. Eric Young wrote OpenSSL. Look how that turned out! Has there been a class of cryptographic vulnerability that OpenSSL hasn't had? And yet consider: for all the effort that people like Bernstein and Boneh put into writing strong, safe crypto, the entire world has blundered into vulnerability after vulnerability because the amateurish crypto in OpenSSL is the one every else ended up using. It's as if you set out to prove my point. Finally: you obviously know that "writing your own crypto" isn't the only way to become good at it. In fact, it's a terrible way to get good at it. The right way to get good at crypto is to learn how to break it. But that takes effort, and you can have a blog post crowing about your new crypto library just a few weeks after deciding to write one.
- baby 9y ago
  > are professional cryptographers and world-renowned experts They were not in the beginning. And implementing crypto helped them get there. That's my point. > Finally: you obviously know that "writing your own crypto" isn't the only way to become good at it. In fact, it's a terrible way to get good at it. The right way to get good at crypto is to learn how to break it. I strongly disagree with you on this, but I'll add a twist: I'm mostly saying to become good in "applied" crypto you must roll your own. There are too many problems you can't understand until you actually write code and try to make it secure. If you want to become good in theoretical crypto, then don't roll your own obviously. This works in any field btw. The best web pentesters are the people who have implemented websites on their own as well.