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WPA3 Wifi Security Protocol Announced
- na85 9y agoCan anyone comment on the efficacy of the CNSA algorithm they are planning to use?
- hlieberman 9y agoCNSA isn't an algorithm. It's the NSA's update to what used to be called "Suite B". It's a set of algorithms that NSA recommends for use in National Security Systems (classified systems that use unclassified algorithms). Currently, that's AES-256, ECDH over P-384, ECDSA over P-384, SHA-384, and then also RSA/DH with a >3072 modulus.
- na85 9y agoSo is WPA3 defective by design, then? I sure don't trust modern NSA-designed algorithms.
- jitl 9y agoThese are publicly designed algorithms that are widely used. It just so happens that the NSA also recommends then.
- ktta 9y agoP-256 and P-384 have some "NSA" stigma associated with them though.
- jlgaddis 9y agoWhich of the above do you think are "NSA-designed algorithms"? The real NSA algorithms are part of "Suite A", which you don't have to worry about trusting because they aren't public. (I've chosen not to use things like the NIST curves for ECDSA, though.)
- userbinator 9y agoWhere can I actually read the spec? I'm not even much of a cryptographer, but I'm curious --- and the closed attitude is a contributing factor to things like this: https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2017/10/16/falling-through-the-kracks/ https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2017/10/16/falling-...
- adyavanapalli 9y agoThis is just the announcement that they're _going_ to build the spec XD
- philsnow 9y agoFine, but in addition everything you do should be encrypted end to end as well as you can. Use httpseverywhere. Use privacy badger.
- dimensi0nal 9y agoPrivacy Badger forces you to send the DNT header, making your browser far more vulnerable to fingerprinting. Just use the relevant filter lists in uBlock Origin.
- majewsky 9y agoHow does DNT make you more vulnerable to fingerprinting? Because there's fewer people that DNT than who don't, or am I missing something else?
- KozmoNau7 9y agoYes, because it's an option you specifically have to set as a user, most people don't bother (or don't know about it), so simply by setting the flag, you're making yourself easier to identify.
- KozmoNau7 9y agoYou can disable the DNT check, and as far as I can tell, I am not sending a DNT flag at all, despite having Privacy Badger installed.
- zingmars 9y agoHow does one do this? I found no relevant setting in privacy badger's settings, and even though dnt is disabled in my browser's settings, I'm still sending the dnt header with privacy badger on (after disabling Privacy Badger my browser no longer sends it, so it's definitely Privacy Badger).
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
- 0xcde4c3db 9y ago> Another feature will strengthen user privacy in open networks through individualized data encryption. WPA1 can arguably be forgiven a lot of shortcomings given its circumstances, but I never understood why this wasn't in WPA2. I understand that the station can't authenticate the AP in this case, but it still seems like it's strictly better for the traffic to be encrypted. What am I missing?
- danellis 9y ago> I never understood why this wasn't in WPA2 Perhaps they thought that this would be taken care of at a higher protocol layer. ISTR that things like IPSEC opportunistic encryption was hyped a lot at the time.
- wmf 9y agoThe same reason browsers don't allow self-signed certificates, I guess. Those security people think a false sense of security is worse than no security.
- zrm 9y agoThe false sense of security is what WPA2 gives anyway. Coffee house has a password on their wifi? Great, then only someone with the password can impersonate the AP, which is only... everyone. You can't tell everybody something and still use it as a secret. What they should be doing is putting the public key of the AP on the wall as a QR code. Or the real solution, which is for everything to be end-to-end encrypted regardless.
- kabes 9y ago> What they should be doing is putting the public key of the AP on the wall as a QR code Except if the attacker has his own QR code stickers.
- QasimK 9y agoIf it’s inside a coffee shop or other physical locations the attempt is likely to be caught. Or, put the code inside a photo frame making it easier for staff to distinguish.
- dmix 9y agoA critical problem I see that needs solving is the Starbucks style open wifi login pages that fail to redirect when trying to visit HTTPS sites. A new secure authentication system is needed for these set ups. I’m blanking on the name of them but clearly they are widely deployed and likely causing lots of regular people to have trouble connecting to pages because they tried to connect to Facebook instead of an HTTP site.
- Kliment 9y agoCaptive portals? Browsers and some mobile devices have a workaround where on new wifi connections they try to connect to a particular url and if that gives unexpected content they know it's a captive portal and prompt you to log in. But ideally this would be in the network descriptor somehow.
- dawnerd 9y agoI wish gogo worked with this. I've ended up bookmarking http://captive.apple.com http://captive.apple.com just to trigger their login page.
- teekert 9y agoI have had this problem as well, and it became increasingly difficult to find non-https domains so I started using one of my own sub-domain for it (I needed it on the dutch railway system). But recently, Ubuntu added a captive portals catcher and gives a small browser window to login (I think it tries to contact an Ubuntu sub-domain first to test the connection, you can turn it off if you want). This is very handy!
- zootboy 9y agoWhy is this a problem? Just mash some keys and add a .com to the end. The portal doesn't check if the domain is real or not, it just intercepts all DNS requests until you've logged in.
- lloeki 9y agoOne feature I wish to see is some form of AP authentication, maybe with TOFU and some PK pinning. That is currently, name an AP the same as another and a machine that had the AP name saved will try to connect to it. If you name an AP "Apple Store" or "Starbucks" you can watch devices connect (with their real MAC even, defeating MAC randomization used when scanning for APs), and if it's an open AP or you got hold of the passphrase, monitor and possibly MITM connections.
- KozmoNau7 9y agoWe definitely need some kind of mechanism to authenticate APs, right now we only have the SSID and MAC, both of which are trivial to spoof. There isn't even any collision detection, nothing stopping you from giving your AP the same SSID as an already present AP, and clients will helpfully connect to whichever one has the strongest signal, which is probably going to be the rogue AP right next to you, rather than the actual Starbucks AP at the other end of the store. According to 802.11, APs with identical names are considered to be part of the same network, no questions asked. I consider it a fundamental flaw of wifi, alongside the boneheadedness of WEP ("wired equivalent protection"... Yeah right, pull the other one), and the idiotic layout of channels in the 2.4GHz spectrum. The only way to use wifi as a consumer is with WPA2 (AES only, no TKIP) a randomly generated strong passkey, and all smart features turned way off (security holes such as WPS). For any AP that you haven't personally set up and vetted, and especially open public APs, a VPN connection is absolutely mandatory. And I still wouldn't trust it 100%.
- leni536 9y agoThere have been proposals to use IEEE 802.11u for access points to signal that they allow EAP-TLS using only server-side authentication. [1] It's more of an implementation and UI problem. The required standards already exist, no need to wait for WPA3. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11u#EAP-TLS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11u#EAP-TLS [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20131126183610/http://riosec.com/open-secure-wireless-2.0 https://web.archive.org/web/20131126183610/http://riosec.com...
- cesarb 9y ago
- sohkamyung 9y agoI would keep a wary eye open until actual specifications are announced and publicly available. If history is any guide, some parts of it might become security mis-features, like Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) which became a security issue because it allows WPS PIN recovery. Also note that the IEEE controls the actual wireless specification as IEEE 802.11 and also specifies the actual encryption standards used during wireless transmission and reception (this used to be called IEEE 802.11i-2004 [1]). My educated guess is that WPA3 won't change the block cyphers used to encrypt data (AES-CCMP) and the initial handshaking protocol as that is part of the IEEE Spec and cannot be changed by the Wi-Fi Alliance. Instead, it may specify additional requirements that clients have to fulfill before connecting (like public key certificates and proof of identities). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11i https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11i
- 0x0 9y agoIs WPA3 going to require new hardware (wifi client cards/chips, wifi routers) or will it be possible to add WPA3 support via a software update in common operating systems?
- bhaavan 9y agoNow if only I could run `apt-get update && apt-get upgrade` on my router's firmware to support this.
- chb 9y agoJust in time for CES!