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Your answers make sense in the context of servers for websites with low security needs, where privacy is of higher concern than security. They do not make sens

by donpark 15y ago

Your answers make sense in the context of servers for websites with low security needs, where privacy is of higher concern than security. They do not make sense for servers with high security needs.

dpark 15y ago
I'm sorry, but you are simply incorrect. Salt is not a piece of secret data. Period. That was never the intention of salt, and it still is not. Secrecy of the salt does not improve its usefulness. As for the download hash, this has nothing to do with security at all, as I already said.
- donpark 15y ago
  Re salt, please see project-rainbowcrack.com as an example of CUDA-driven hash cracking. Re download hash, I think we disagree on what data integrity means. By data integrity, I mean trustworthiness which implies security, meaning file content hasn't been modified in-storage or in-transit. I'm guessing you are using those words to mean protection against transport-errors or typos (credit card entry) for which checksum is commonly used. Given that HTTP is still the most common transport for file download and it's a reliable transport, file-hashing for transport-errors detection is I think meaningless. I know some browsers failed to report errors but comparing length is typically suffice to catch this. That leaves only file-hashing as protection against tempering in-storage or in-transit which is why I am saying it's security-related. Keyed-hashing can mediate but, unfortunately, is not commonly used as it requires PKI.
  - dpark 15y ago
    How does pointing to rainbow tables indicate that salt should be secret? That's one of the things that salt prevents, and it does it without being secret. A 32-char random salt could be publicly published for each of your users and it would still do its job. Secrecy doesn't matter. Data integrity is not trustworthiness. Data integrity means I got what you said I should get, not that you are trustworthy (and therefore I can trust what I got from you). If you want secure assurance that you got what I really sent, then you need secure assurance that I am who I say I am, and no hash will get that. You need a signed file (or hash). A hash by itself is indeed nothing but a robust a checksum in this case. There's no point in arguing about the md5 for downloads. You're assuming that it's for security, and it's really not. It's primarily for people who are paranoid about corruption. It is also useful for validating when downloading from a mirror, though.
    - donpark 15y ago
      Let's just stop here. Given that we can't even agree on meaning of words, I think continuing this discussion will produce only further disagreements or misunderstandings. I do, however, appreciate your cordial and elaborate responses for which I thank you.

by donpark 15y ago

Your answers make sense in the context of servers for websites with low security needs, where privacy is of higher concern than security. They do not make sense for servers with high security needs.

dpark 15y ago

I'm sorry, but you are simply incorrect. Salt is not a piece of secret data. Period. That was never the intention of salt, and it still is not. Secrecy of the salt does not improve its usefulness. As for the download hash, this has nothing to do with security at all, as I already said.

donpark 15y ago
Re salt, please see project-rainbowcrack.com as an example of CUDA-driven hash cracking. Re download hash, I think we disagree on what data integrity means. By data integrity, I mean trustworthiness which implies security, meaning file content hasn't been modified in-storage or in-transit. I'm guessing you are using those words to mean protection against transport-errors or typos (credit card entry) for which checksum is commonly used. Given that HTTP is still the most common transport for file download and it's a reliable transport, file-hashing for transport-errors detection is I think meaningless. I know some browsers failed to report errors but comparing length is typically suffice to catch this. That leaves only file-hashing as protection against tempering in-storage or in-transit which is why I am saying it's security-related. Keyed-hashing can mediate but, unfortunately, is not commonly used as it requires PKI.
- dpark 15y ago
  How does pointing to rainbow tables indicate that salt should be secret? That's one of the things that salt prevents, and it does it without being secret. A 32-char random salt could be publicly published for each of your users and it would still do its job. Secrecy doesn't matter. Data integrity is not trustworthiness. Data integrity means I got what you said I should get, not that you are trustworthy (and therefore I can trust what I got from you). If you want secure assurance that you got what I really sent, then you need secure assurance that I am who I say I am, and no hash will get that. You need a signed file (or hash). A hash by itself is indeed nothing but a robust a checksum in this case. There's no point in arguing about the md5 for downloads. You're assuming that it's for security, and it's really not. It's primarily for people who are paranoid about corruption. It is also useful for validating when downloading from a mirror, though.
  - donpark 15y ago
    Let's just stop here. Given that we can't even agree on meaning of words, I think continuing this discussion will produce only further disagreements or misunderstandings. I do, however, appreciate your cordial and elaborate responses for which I thank you.