6 ms·

Http://www.google.com/wo0dh3ad

79 points by SimplePast 16y ago

This is the function used by Tunisia Gov agencies to harvest login/passwords : see also http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/201101/6651 <script language="javascript">  </script>

bensummers 16y ago
Story behind this: http://cpj.org/internet/2011/01/tunisia-invades-censors-facebook-other-accounts.php http://cpj.org/internet/2011/01/tunisia-invades-censors-face...
wladimir 16y ago
Proves again, there is really no excuse not to use HTTPS for everything. Encryption/certificate validation make it much harder to pull of a MITM attack like this, especially by companies and small repressive governments.
- pmjordan 16y ago
  With this scale of access to the network infrastructure[1], I'd be worried about them injecting drive-by downloads of browser exploits which install trust for a root certificate controlled by the government. Once in place, MITM attacks on https are possible. The tricky bit would be telling apart requests from compromised machines and uncompromised ones. (attempting to MITM the latter will cause the browser to start jumping up and down, potentially raising suspicion) Even more scary is the thought experiment that Microsoft might cooperate with the Tunisian government and allow installing trust for such a root certificate via the windows update mechanism. (I have no evidence that this actually happens, it just seems a convenient vector) [1] They're under no time pressure and can transparently proxy every single TCP connection and IP packet if they so desire. They control DNS.
  - wladimir 16y ago
    If you want scary, what about bribing Intel and AMD to include 'propietrary instructions' for your government?
    - pmjordan 16y ago
      Seems a little far-fetched and overly complicated for carrying out a practical attack.
      - wladimir 16y ago
        Yes, but at least it would work for practically everything, and it seems most effective to start at the source if you're bribing big companies anyway. If you bribe Microsoft you'll only get the IE (and possibly Windows) users, and privacy-minded individuals will likely be avoiding those already. Also it's pretty much impossible to patch and protect against, even if you know the exploit exists.
        pmjordan 16y ago
        You'd still need some kind of software support to trigger the exploit. At which point you may as well go with a software-only attack.
        wladimir 16y ago
        Naah, if it's simply a few added instructions I agree with you. But let's think in a wider scope (disclaimer: this is not my idea, I remember reading about it a long time ago): what if a certain cryptographic "magic code" at the beginning of a memory page would trigger the execution of arbitrary code embedded in that page? Such a thing could be triggered over the network, wireless through bluetooth/wifi, or by specially crafted images on a webpage, or whatever creative technique you can think of. It'd effectively give the govt instant root access to any device with the affected CPUs.
        16y ago
- jrockway 16y ago
  I guess SSL is an improvement. Now you just have to trust 2000 companies and anyone controlling their purse strings, instead of having to trust everyone. You feel safe, which is much better than being safe...
  - varjag 16y ago
    So what you are trying to convey, there is no advantage to using SSL vs. plain connection? I wonder why then they shut down SSL in my home country during elections..
    - skorgu 16y ago
      There's no advantage against a motivated, state-sized actor. Against other attackers there is still substantial advantage.
      - varjag 16y ago
        Let's say there is no advantage against (maybe) the U.S. government. I fail to see how any other state or entity would be able to manipulate certificate authority chain in general.
        mooism2 16y ago
        If you are a certificate authority, you can issue certificates for any domain. There is nothing in the technology preventing you from issuing a whitehouse.gov certificate merely because you are based in Iran, for example.
        varjag 16y ago
        Who is going to sign it?
        mooism2 16y ago
        Who is going to sign what? If you mean the certificates that the certificate authority issues, then the certificate authority signs them itself. If you mean who signs the certificate authority's authority certificate, then either another certificate authority signs it, or the certificate authority signs it itself and pays the browser makers to include it as a root certificate in their browsers. I'm not sure what you're trying to get at?
- mooism2 16y ago
  I agree TLS should be more widely used. But... When the government or ISP in question controls its own certificate authority (and many do), they can MITM you even over HTTPS. Yes, it's another speedbump for them to get over. No, it's not going to stop them. The X.509 security model is broken and needs fixing or replacing.
  - chaitanya 16y ago
    Are there any certifying authorities which can be considered relatively free of government/corporate control?
    - wrs 16y ago
      That doesn't matter until browsers start paying attention to which authority signed the certificate.
- iuguy 16y ago
  The simple answer for small repressive governments is to block the HTTPS login form so you have to fall back to HTTP. ATI has complete control of all Internet access in Tunisia. You're just not going to get through them unless you can find a way through. In some countries I work in we routinely come across censorship and all kinds of dodgy goings on, so we have a variety of tunnelling methods (VPN, SSH, ICMPTX, DNSTX, Tor and a few non-public tunnelling options). For the most part as long as you can terminate a connection in somewhere you're fairly comfortable with you're better off. Also don't make the mistake of feeling that the US, UK or EU are automatically comfortable options. It all depends what you're doing with the data. A little common sense goes a long way.
  - wladimir 16y ago
    Of course, governments can completely block port 443, but that will make so many internet sites unusable they could just as well completely pull the plug. And with 'HTTPS everywhere', I also mean removing the HTTP fallback. Fallbacks to plaintext (that can be triggered by a MITM) are indeed obvious backdoors that should be avoided in any protocol.
  - SimplePast 16y ago
    Correct ! Facebook https is already blocked !
- pornel 16y ago
  http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Atn+inurl%3Ahttps http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Atn+inurl%3Ahttps Quite a few of Tunisian websites are signed by "Agence Nationale de Certification Electronique". Also, there so many intermediate CA's that I find it hard to believe that the system isn't broken: https://www.eff.org/files/colour_map_of_CAs.pdf https://www.eff.org/files/colour_map_of_CAs.pdf (via https://www.eff.org/observatory https://www.eff.org/observatory) We already had UAE government successfully MITM-ing SSL by forcing CyberTrust-delegated CA to forge a certificate: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/09/uae_man-in-the-.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/09/uae_man-in-the...
Jabbles 16y ago
Fortunately, because the fake "wo0dh3ad" page accessed was on their site, Facebook may well have a log of everyone whose account was compromised and can take steps to warn and protect their Tunisian users. Why would the Tunisian government have allowed ISPs to forward these requests? Facebook probably knows nothing about this.
mike-cardwell 16y ago
This is why login forms themselves must be opened over an HTTPS connection. Displaying a login form over HTTP which POSTs to HTTPS is easily MITMd. Think of your users. Some of them will be accessing your sites from oppressive regimes. Let them do so safely. Taking Facebook as an example, considering how global their usage is, and the amount of sensitive data peoples accounts contain, it's unforgivable that they don't force HTTPS traffic for everything.
- saurik 16y ago
  Unfortunately, that is easily defeated by modifying all non-SSL pages on the site to link to a non-SSL login page look-alike (which is easily generated by downloading the real one over SSL and forwarding it decrypted). I don't see any reasonable way to solve this other than /always/ using SSL for your site.
thamer 16y ago
Slim Amamou, who is named in the article as the on who discovered this code, has been arrested. His phone is still updating his Google Latitude position, moving between several government buildings. http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/2011/01/07/tunisia-blogger-slim-amamou-arrested-today/ http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/2011/01/07/tunisia-bl...
pavel_lishin 16y ago
So, is pornography actually illegal in Tunisia, or is this a case of "Well, we just don't like it when you do it."?
- eli 16y ago
  I'm not sure there's a big distinction under an authoritarian regime

79 points by SimplePast 16y ago

bensummers 16y ago

Story behind this: http://cpj.org/internet/2011/01/tunisia-invades-censors-facebook-other-accounts.php http://cpj.org/internet/2011/01/tunisia-invades-censors-face...

wladimir 16y ago

Proves again, there is really no excuse not to use HTTPS for everything. Encryption/certificate validation make it much harder to pull of a MITM attack like this, especially by companies and small repressive governments.

pmjordan 16y ago
With this scale of access to the network infrastructure[1], I'd be worried about them injecting drive-by downloads of browser exploits which install trust for a root certificate controlled by the government. Once in place, MITM attacks on https are possible. The tricky bit would be telling apart requests from compromised machines and uncompromised ones. (attempting to MITM the latter will cause the browser to start jumping up and down, potentially raising suspicion) Even more scary is the thought experiment that Microsoft might cooperate with the Tunisian government and allow installing trust for such a root certificate via the windows update mechanism. (I have no evidence that this actually happens, it just seems a convenient vector) [1] They're under no time pressure and can transparently proxy every single TCP connection and IP packet if they so desire. They control DNS.
- wladimir 16y ago
  If you want scary, what about bribing Intel and AMD to include 'propietrary instructions' for your government?
  - pmjordan 16y ago
    Seems a little far-fetched and overly complicated for carrying out a practical attack.
    - wladimir 16y ago
      Yes, but at least it would work for practically everything, and it seems most effective to start at the source if you're bribing big companies anyway. If you bribe Microsoft you'll only get the IE (and possibly Windows) users, and privacy-minded individuals will likely be avoiding those already. Also it's pretty much impossible to patch and protect against, even if you know the exploit exists.
      - pmjordan 16y ago
        You'd still need some kind of software support to trigger the exploit. At which point you may as well go with a software-only attack.
        wladimir 16y ago
        Naah, if it's simply a few added instructions I agree with you. But let's think in a wider scope (disclaimer: this is not my idea, I remember reading about it a long time ago): what if a certain cryptographic "magic code" at the beginning of a memory page would trigger the execution of arbitrary code embedded in that page? Such a thing could be triggered over the network, wireless through bluetooth/wifi, or by specially crafted images on a webpage, or whatever creative technique you can think of. It'd effectively give the govt instant root access to any device with the affected CPUs.
        16y ago
jrockway 16y ago
I guess SSL is an improvement. Now you just have to trust 2000 companies and anyone controlling their purse strings, instead of having to trust everyone. You feel safe, which is much better than being safe...
- varjag 16y ago
  So what you are trying to convey, there is no advantage to using SSL vs. plain connection? I wonder why then they shut down SSL in my home country during elections..
  - skorgu 16y ago
    There's no advantage against a motivated, state-sized actor. Against other attackers there is still substantial advantage.
    - varjag 16y ago
      Let's say there is no advantage against (maybe) the U.S. government. I fail to see how any other state or entity would be able to manipulate certificate authority chain in general.
      - mooism2 16y ago
        If you are a certificate authority, you can issue certificates for any domain. There is nothing in the technology preventing you from issuing a whitehouse.gov certificate merely because you are based in Iran, for example.
        varjag 16y ago
        Who is going to sign it?
        mooism2 16y ago
        Who is going to sign what? If you mean the certificates that the certificate authority issues, then the certificate authority signs them itself. If you mean who signs the certificate authority's authority certificate, then either another certificate authority signs it, or the certificate authority signs it itself and pays the browser makers to include it as a root certificate in their browsers. I'm not sure what you're trying to get at?
mooism2 16y ago
I agree TLS should be more widely used. But... When the government or ISP in question controls its own certificate authority (and many do), they can MITM you even over HTTPS. Yes, it's another speedbump for them to get over. No, it's not going to stop them. The X.509 security model is broken and needs fixing or replacing.
- chaitanya 16y ago
  Are there any certifying authorities which can be considered relatively free of government/corporate control?
  - wrs 16y ago
    That doesn't matter until browsers start paying attention to which authority signed the certificate.
iuguy 16y ago
The simple answer for small repressive governments is to block the HTTPS login form so you have to fall back to HTTP. ATI has complete control of all Internet access in Tunisia. You're just not going to get through them unless you can find a way through. In some countries I work in we routinely come across censorship and all kinds of dodgy goings on, so we have a variety of tunnelling methods (VPN, SSH, ICMPTX, DNSTX, Tor and a few non-public tunnelling options). For the most part as long as you can terminate a connection in somewhere you're fairly comfortable with you're better off. Also don't make the mistake of feeling that the US, UK or EU are automatically comfortable options. It all depends what you're doing with the data. A little common sense goes a long way.
- wladimir 16y ago
  Of course, governments can completely block port 443, but that will make so many internet sites unusable they could just as well completely pull the plug. And with 'HTTPS everywhere', I also mean removing the HTTP fallback. Fallbacks to plaintext (that can be triggered by a MITM) are indeed obvious backdoors that should be avoided in any protocol.
- SimplePast 16y ago
  Correct ! Facebook https is already blocked !
pornel 16y ago
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Atn+inurl%3Ahttps http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Atn+inurl%3Ahttps Quite a few of Tunisian websites are signed by "Agence Nationale de Certification Electronique". Also, there so many intermediate CA's that I find it hard to believe that the system isn't broken: https://www.eff.org/files/colour_map_of_CAs.pdf https://www.eff.org/files/colour_map_of_CAs.pdf (via https://www.eff.org/observatory https://www.eff.org/observatory) We already had UAE government successfully MITM-ing SSL by forcing CyberTrust-delegated CA to forge a certificate: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/09/uae_man-in-the-.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/09/uae_man-in-the...

Jabbles 16y ago

Fortunately, because the fake "wo0dh3ad" page accessed was on their site, Facebook may well have a log of everyone whose account was compromised and can take steps to warn and protect their Tunisian users. Why would the Tunisian government have allowed ISPs to forward these requests? Facebook probably knows nothing about this.

mike-cardwell 16y ago

This is why login forms themselves must be opened over an HTTPS connection. Displaying a login form over HTTP which POSTs to HTTPS is easily MITMd. Think of your users. Some of them will be accessing your sites from oppressive regimes. Let them do so safely. Taking Facebook as an example, considering how global their usage is, and the amount of sensitive data peoples accounts contain, it's unforgivable that they don't force HTTPS traffic for everything.

saurik 16y ago
Unfortunately, that is easily defeated by modifying all non-SSL pages on the site to link to a non-SSL login page look-alike (which is easily generated by downloading the real one over SSL and forwarding it decrypted). I don't see any reasonable way to solve this other than /always/ using SSL for your site.

thamer 16y ago

Slim Amamou, who is named in the article as the on who discovered this code, has been arrested. His phone is still updating his Google Latitude position, moving between several government buildings. http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/2011/01/07/tunisia-blogger-slim-amamou-arrested-today/ http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/2011/01/07/tunisia-bl...

pavel_lishin 16y ago

So, is pornography actually illegal in Tunisia, or is this a case of "Well, we just don't like it when you do it."?

eli 16y ago
I'm not sure there's a big distinction under an authoritarian regime