8 ms·
Maybe this is paranoid but they tell you how to check the hash of the download using openssl itself. A compromised version of openssl could detect itself and r
by LeoPanthera 5y ago
Maybe this is paranoid but they tell you how to check the hash of the download using openssl itself.
A compromised version of openssl could detect itself and return the "correct" hash.
- beebmam 5y agoThis makes sense if you don't check a package's hash before you install it.
- CodeWriter23 5y agoOr if you have supply chain-hacked version installed by your Distro that grabs the hash from the download page.
- beebmam 5y agoUnbelievably too late at that point that it doesn't matter even the slightest
- j_walter 5y agoUse your current version of openssl...
- ronsor 5y ago... and if your current version of openssl is already compromised, nobody can help you anyway.
- manquer 5y agoThere are always components you cannot fully trust . Ken Thompson's reflections on trusting trust [1] comes to mind Trust depends on threat model, if your threat model includes such actors/potential attack vectors then you should worry, ultimately you are depending on someone code for any reasonable abstractions (even ignoring chip level comprises) [1] https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_ReflectionsonTrustingTrust.pdf https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_Ref...
- marcodiego 5y agoThere is a way out: a simple assembler that can be hand typed and easily checked that allows the user to type-in a more advanced one ... until a compiler or interpreter with checked source code can be run and bootstrap tools whose source can be checked by hashes. It is already doable: https://bootstrappable.org/ https://bootstrappable.org/ https://gitlab.com/janneke/mes https://gitlab.com/janneke/mes https://git.savannah.nongnu.org/cgit/stage0.git/tree/README.org https://git.savannah.nongnu.org/cgit/stage0.git/tree/README....
- manquer 5y agoThe point is not that it whether it is possible, it is not going to be practical, this you will always have some level of accepted risk. Even if you could ensure the compiler is secure, it is hard if not impossible to completely control what actually runs on the chip.
- marcodiego 5y agoYou can do it once in your life on a single machine. From there you compile the software for other machines. It is like a tree whose fruits you trust because you planted it yourself (actually it is more like if you wrote the seed yourself) and use it to plant other trees. Only remaining vulnerability is the hardware, but as I like to say: security is not binary.
- IncRnd 5y agoThat is not doable, given the threat discussed in the mentioned paper, since the manner of data entry and the manner of "easily checking" can be compromised. If you are hand typing an assembler in order to bootstrap a more complicated assembler, which creates a compiler or interpreter to check a single hash value, you are engaging in the wrong mitigation. You should instead use an airgapped computer with different software.
- marcodiego 5y agoAFAIK, the bootstrapable project specifically addresses the reflections on trusting trust problem.
- jamesmishra 5y agoAgreed. For other HN users, this is the "Reflections on Trusting Trust" issue. https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_ReflectionsonTrustingTrust.pdf https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_Ref...
- kccqzy 5y agoDon't you check for the hash before you begin compiling? If not, you are in serious trouble.