5 ms·

Someone, somewhere, screwed up. It's quite odd. Certainly Assange is quite technically savvy -- he's a reformed (genuine) hacker -- after all. So I just can't

Someone, somewhere, screwed up. It's quite odd. Certainly Assange is quite technically savvy -- he's a reformed (genuine) hacker -- after all. So I just can't imagine him re-using passwords. Similarly, I would have thought that he'd be enough of a control freak to, you know, check this stuff out himself.

jarin 15y ago
To be fair, he may not be sitting around running port scanners and wardialers anymore, but I'd hardly call him reformed.
- xtracto 15y ago
  What does it mean to be a "reformed hacker" anyway? Does it mean that he does not black-hat hack anymore? Or that he does not "hack"? How do we know he does not "hack"? maybe he doesn't do it publicly but he still "hacks" to his OSX/Linux box.
  - RuadhanMc 15y ago
    Well in the 80's and 90's when Assange did the illegal hacking, that we're aware of, hackers weren't what we call hackers today. So a reformed hacker in my books is someone who no longer illegally hacks into property that is not theirs. In "Hacker News" existed a decade+ ago then it would have been filled with black-hats.
    - indrax 15y ago
      Hack is orthogonal to legal. Hack is orthogonal to personal gain.
cookiecaper 15y ago
I agree that this is a weird thing. From my reading it appears that the encrypted archive sent to the Guardian got out somehow and that combined with the password (recklessly) published in the book, the data can be decrypted to reveal the full unredacted archive. There are some interesting considerations involved in what this means for distributing highly sensitive data to non-technical people. They apparently have no comprehension that a PGP-encrypted file is not like a web service where you can just go in and change the password in a jiffy -- as long as that file exists, the same password will work on it, forever. The rebuttal quoted indicates that WL said it was a "temporary" password, so it seems that via a misinterpretation at the Guardian, its editors expected the password to stop working on that file in a matter of hours. It would be really interesting to see PGP files that were time-sensitive, and used passwords that only worked within X time. Does anyone know if something like that has been done? What would have been a more secure way to distribute the archive? Only bundle 1000 cables at a time, each file with a unique password? Require journalists to view the files on premises at WL so that there was no loss of control on the data? Bundle everything up in a black-box .exe that self-destructed in x time (though, unless implemented carefully, this would still reveal private data once a competent person got a hold of it)? Why weren't these files asymmetrically encrypted anyway? Surely it is not very likely that the private key of a user would be published in a book or that a user would upload his private key to bittorrent. Lots of interesting possibilities here...
- nitrogen 15y ago
  It would be really interesting to see PGP files that were time-sensitive, and used passwords that only worked within X time. Does anyone know if something like that has been done? I'm not a cryptographer, but it seems to me like something of this nature is impossible without maintaining control of the decryption process. You could add a timestamp to the file, but the workaround would be to change your computer's clock or rewrite the decryption software. You would have to include a cryptographically-signed timestamp from a trusted time server in the en/decryption process. Once that signed timestamp is obtained, though, it could be distributed along with the password and a modified application that uses the stored timestamp instead of a live one from the server. My knowledge comes from reading about failed DRM schemes and the comments of tptacek and cpercival, so I can only point out things that wouldn't work, not what will.
- shabble 15y ago
  I can't imagine how you could build a foolproof (or more importantly, state-sponsored-team-of-experts-proof) time-limited system. Assuming the file is digital, and can be accessed freely, you can make infinite bit-identical copies and fiddle your system clocks to make it work. You'd need some sort of physical real-time clock combined with the memory storing the material, which wipes it after a given time. Maybe even a physical medium which degrades over time[3] could work, but that could be foiled by controlling the environmental conditions (inert gas atmosphere to avoid oxidation, cold temps to slow electron migration, etc). There's a couple of interesting physical-security related links in a comment of mine from the other week: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2932492 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2932492 My personal approach would be something like providing an incredibly locked-down laptop/netbook (https://grepular.com/Protecting_a_Laptop_from_Simple_and_Sophisticated_Attacks https://grepular.com/Protecting_a_Laptop_from_Simple_and_Sop... would be a good start), but with additional physical security improvements (battery/big caps wired directly to HDD and RAM via a set of tamper switches[1], disabling all IO ports in software and filling them with epoxy / disconnecting internally) You could then wire in an RTC to the same system, as well as perhaps using a GPS receiver to verify the time (Yes, you could jam/spoof GPS signals if you knew to expect them, but that's still raising the bar). One final approach would be to have some other trusted party/system which remains in your control, and have some challenge/response auth which you can disable/destroy after a fixed time. To conclude, I can't see any way to build time-limited encryption without some external trusted authority or some trusted physical infrastructure. [1] Not just physical switches, but as many things as you can come up with: Light sensors, pressure sensors (especially if you can gas-seal the enclosure and keep it at elevated/vacuum pressures), temperature to avoid cooling attacks, resistive/optic-fibre security meshes. Another amusing idea would be to use a GPS receiver to ensure that data can only be viewed from a given physical location[2]. [2] This gets used in _Distress_ by Greg Egan, although I'd thought about it myself long before reading the book. Edit: [3] I just remembered about Flexplay (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Flexplay https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Flexplay), which was a DVD scheme based on oxidation to time-limit their use as one-shot rentals.

jarin 15y ago

To be fair, he may not be sitting around running port scanners and wardialers anymore, but I'd hardly call him reformed.

xtracto 15y ago
What does it mean to be a "reformed hacker" anyway? Does it mean that he does not black-hat hack anymore? Or that he does not "hack"? How do we know he does not "hack"? maybe he doesn't do it publicly but he still "hacks" to his OSX/Linux box.
- RuadhanMc 15y ago
  Well in the 80's and 90's when Assange did the illegal hacking, that we're aware of, hackers weren't what we call hackers today. So a reformed hacker in my books is someone who no longer illegally hacks into property that is not theirs. In "Hacker News" existed a decade+ ago then it would have been filled with black-hats.
  - indrax 15y ago
    Hack is orthogonal to legal. Hack is orthogonal to personal gain.

cookiecaper 15y ago

I agree that this is a weird thing. From my reading it appears that the encrypted archive sent to the Guardian got out somehow and that combined with the password (recklessly) published in the book, the data can be decrypted to reveal the full unredacted archive. There are some interesting considerations involved in what this means for distributing highly sensitive data to non-technical people. They apparently have no comprehension that a PGP-encrypted file is not like a web service where you can just go in and change the password in a jiffy -- as long as that file exists, the same password will work on it, forever. The rebuttal quoted indicates that WL said it was a "temporary" password, so it seems that via a misinterpretation at the Guardian, its editors expected the password to stop working on that file in a matter of hours. It would be really interesting to see PGP files that were time-sensitive, and used passwords that only worked within X time. Does anyone know if something like that has been done? What would have been a more secure way to distribute the archive? Only bundle 1000 cables at a time, each file with a unique password? Require journalists to view the files on premises at WL so that there was no loss of control on the data? Bundle everything up in a black-box .exe that self-destructed in x time (though, unless implemented carefully, this would still reveal private data once a competent person got a hold of it)? Why weren't these files asymmetrically encrypted anyway? Surely it is not very likely that the private key of a user would be published in a book or that a user would upload his private key to bittorrent. Lots of interesting possibilities here...

nitrogen 15y ago
It would be really interesting to see PGP files that were time-sensitive, and used passwords that only worked within X time. Does anyone know if something like that has been done? I'm not a cryptographer, but it seems to me like something of this nature is impossible without maintaining control of the decryption process. You could add a timestamp to the file, but the workaround would be to change your computer's clock or rewrite the decryption software. You would have to include a cryptographically-signed timestamp from a trusted time server in the en/decryption process. Once that signed timestamp is obtained, though, it could be distributed along with the password and a modified application that uses the stored timestamp instead of a live one from the server. My knowledge comes from reading about failed DRM schemes and the comments of tptacek and cpercival, so I can only point out things that wouldn't work, not what will.
shabble 15y ago
I can't imagine how you could build a foolproof (or more importantly, state-sponsored-team-of-experts-proof) time-limited system. Assuming the file is digital, and can be accessed freely, you can make infinite bit-identical copies and fiddle your system clocks to make it work. You'd need some sort of physical real-time clock combined with the memory storing the material, which wipes it after a given time. Maybe even a physical medium which degrades over time[3] could work, but that could be foiled by controlling the environmental conditions (inert gas atmosphere to avoid oxidation, cold temps to slow electron migration, etc). There's a couple of interesting physical-security related links in a comment of mine from the other week: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2932492 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2932492 My personal approach would be something like providing an incredibly locked-down laptop/netbook (https://grepular.com/Protecting_a_Laptop_from_Simple_and_Sophisticated_Attacks https://grepular.com/Protecting_a_Laptop_from_Simple_and_Sop... would be a good start), but with additional physical security improvements (battery/big caps wired directly to HDD and RAM via a set of tamper switches[1], disabling all IO ports in software and filling them with epoxy / disconnecting internally) You could then wire in an RTC to the same system, as well as perhaps using a GPS receiver to verify the time (Yes, you could jam/spoof GPS signals if you knew to expect them, but that's still raising the bar). One final approach would be to have some other trusted party/system which remains in your control, and have some challenge/response auth which you can disable/destroy after a fixed time. To conclude, I can't see any way to build time-limited encryption without some external trusted authority or some trusted physical infrastructure. [1] Not just physical switches, but as many things as you can come up with: Light sensors, pressure sensors (especially if you can gas-seal the enclosure and keep it at elevated/vacuum pressures), temperature to avoid cooling attacks, resistive/optic-fibre security meshes. Another amusing idea would be to use a GPS receiver to ensure that data can only be viewed from a given physical location[2]. [2] This gets used in _Distress_ by Greg Egan, although I'd thought about it myself long before reading the book. Edit: [3] I just remembered about Flexplay (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Flexplay https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Flexplay), which was a DVD scheme based on oxidation to time-limit their use as one-shot rentals.