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I also use it, and it works, but this tells us nothing about its actual security. Security people are also subject to fads and fashion just like web developers

by pnako 7y ago

I also use it, and it works, but this tells us nothing about its actual security. Security people are also subject to fads and fashion just like web developers or indeed any other technical group. Many will endorse the primitives developed for example by Dan Bernstein without understanding anything about how they actually work, or having read and understood papers describing their security. Just because he has some hacker "street cred" (arguably well deserved) as the developer of qmail, etc.

Ar-Curunir 7y ago
The primitives codesigned/codiscovered by Dan Bernstein have become popular not because of hacker street cred but rather because they are peer reviewed and have good design rationale
tptacek 7y ago
This is an extraordinarily weird way to summarize WireGuard's cryptography, which shares primitives with Signal (it's derived from Trevor Perrin's Noise framework) and, while we're at it, TLS 1.3. Bernstein's credibility in cryptography comes from his standing as an academic cryptographer, not as "the developer of qmail".
- pnako 7y ago
  I'm not remotely a cryptographer. And I'm not saying there is anything wrong with his algos obviously. But I remember when the algos designed by Bruce Schneier were all the rage, and I think it was similarly based on some sort of guru status. If I look at Bernstein's most cited papers, they are all about performance, aside from what appears to be a survey on post-quantum crypto and what does seem to be like a well-cited paper on AES cache timing attacks. So my genuine question is: does he really have an unusual academic standing as a cryptographer? This ranking by citation (which appears to be up-to-date/live) puts him in position 62: https://kodu.ut.ee/~lipmaa/cites/cites.php?data=crypto https://kodu.ut.ee/~lipmaa/cites/cites.php?data=crypto Granted, it's just a ranking by citation, and this definitely puts him in the top 100, which is nothing to scoff at, but I'm still wondering if there is a similar effect, and if in ten years we won't be using algos all written by some other guy because he's the new cool kid.
  - tptacek 7y ago
    I feel like you've answered your own question.
    - pnako 7y ago
      Ah; maybe, yes :)
- labawi 7y ago
  Not OP. I do not have issues with WireGuard's cryptography. I do have issues with wireguard's security - things like silently accepting invalid configuration, changing one peer can silently affect another (only avoided via external means), roaming is default enabled and can't be disabled nor can you bind the tunnel to an interface or an ip, nor does it pad packets even the slightest to reduce "meta"data leakage. Just because the cryptography is (probably) sane, doesn't mean wireguard as a whole is good for all or most use-cases.

by pnako 7y ago

Ar-Curunir 7y ago

The primitives codesigned/codiscovered by Dan Bernstein have become popular not because of hacker street cred but rather because they are peer reviewed and have good design rationale

tptacek 7y ago

This is an extraordinarily weird way to summarize WireGuard's cryptography, which shares primitives with Signal (it's derived from Trevor Perrin's Noise framework) and, while we're at it, TLS 1.3. Bernstein's credibility in cryptography comes from his standing as an academic cryptographer, not as "the developer of qmail".

pnako 7y ago
I'm not remotely a cryptographer. And I'm not saying there is anything wrong with his algos obviously. But I remember when the algos designed by Bruce Schneier were all the rage, and I think it was similarly based on some sort of guru status. If I look at Bernstein's most cited papers, they are all about performance, aside from what appears to be a survey on post-quantum crypto and what does seem to be like a well-cited paper on AES cache timing attacks. So my genuine question is: does he really have an unusual academic standing as a cryptographer? This ranking by citation (which appears to be up-to-date/live) puts him in position 62: https://kodu.ut.ee/~lipmaa/cites/cites.php?data=crypto https://kodu.ut.ee/~lipmaa/cites/cites.php?data=crypto Granted, it's just a ranking by citation, and this definitely puts him in the top 100, which is nothing to scoff at, but I'm still wondering if there is a similar effect, and if in ten years we won't be using algos all written by some other guy because he's the new cool kid.
- tptacek 7y ago
  I feel like you've answered your own question.
  - pnako 7y ago
    Ah; maybe, yes :)
labawi 7y ago
Not OP. I do not have issues with WireGuard's cryptography. I do have issues with wireguard's security - things like silently accepting invalid configuration, changing one peer can silently affect another (only avoided via external means), roaming is default enabled and can't be disabled nor can you bind the tunnel to an interface or an ip, nor does it pad packets even the slightest to reduce "meta"data leakage. Just because the cryptography is (probably) sane, doesn't mean wireguard as a whole is good for all or most use-cases.