3 ms·

>We'd additionally need a standard similar to what Germany and Croatia have done that allows a person to use their computer or phone as an NFC reader "proxy" to

>We'd additionally need a standard similar to what Germany and Croatia have done that allows a person to use their computer or phone as an NFC reader "proxy" to create a digital signature against a service-provided challenge that can then be traced back to the government's PKI. Why bother with NFC if the phone itself has secure enclave and a biometry check to lock it down too? And the best part of course, the federal government of US doesn't just have a standard, but actively uses all that for quite some time, just explicitly without NFC.

mschuster91 3y ago
> Why bother with NFC if the phone itself has secure enclave and a biometry check to lock it down too? There have been a lot secure-enclave exploits against both Apple [1] and everyone else [2], and fingerprint readers can also be bypassed. The Secure Enclave itself has a giant attack surface and is highly complex. (That however does not stop dreams of "digital driver's licenses" and whatnot, though, but that's another question) In contrast to that, ISO 7816 smartcard stuff has been in use for decades, and (unless it's Javacard...) a very limited complexity. It's rare to see something else other than sidechannel attacks. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24025502 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24025502 [2] https://www.zdnet.com/article/manual-code-review-finds-35-vulnerabilities-in-8-enclave-sdks/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/manual-code-review-finds-35-vu...
- Muromec 3y ago
  Fair enough. So the attack scenario is having a rogue state-sponsored app installed on everybody's device (think tik-tok), which steals everybody's private keys ... and does what? Registers an account on coinbase to launder money? Applies for a childcare subsidy and wires the money to insert country here?
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    > Fair enough. So the attack scenario is having a rogue state-sponsored app installed on everybody's device (think tik-tok), which steals everybody's private keys The German AusweisApp2 is fully open-source (to protect against the first scenario), and it might be possible to do it in a web app assuming Web NFC gets more widely supported [1]. The second scenario is protected against by the keys being provisioned on the smartcard during manufacture (or, if the user so desires, at the touchpoint where they get handed over the ID card) and being unable to be exposed, at least not without either destructive methods or side-channel attacks. [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_NFC_API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_NFC_API
    - Muromec 3y ago
      Yeah I get how smartcards work, I'm talking about what can practically go wrong if the keys are kept in a secure enclave instead.
      - mschuster91 3y ago
        Malware can go and dump the keys from the Secure Enclave. It's just the same mechanism that pirates use to crack the Widevine decryption, just that it's the strong digital identity of a person towards a government at stake here.

mschuster91 3y ago

> Why bother with NFC if the phone itself has secure enclave and a biometry check to lock it down too? There have been a lot secure-enclave exploits against both Apple [1] and everyone else [2], and fingerprint readers can also be bypassed. The Secure Enclave itself has a giant attack surface and is highly complex. (That however does not stop dreams of "digital driver's licenses" and whatnot, though, but that's another question) In contrast to that, ISO 7816 smartcard stuff has been in use for decades, and (unless it's Javacard...) a very limited complexity. It's rare to see something else other than sidechannel attacks. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24025502 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24025502 [2] https://www.zdnet.com/article/manual-code-review-finds-35-vulnerabilities-in-8-enclave-sdks/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/manual-code-review-finds-35-vu...

Muromec 3y ago
Fair enough. So the attack scenario is having a rogue state-sponsored app installed on everybody's device (think tik-tok), which steals everybody's private keys ... and does what? Registers an account on coinbase to launder money? Applies for a childcare subsidy and wires the money to insert country here?
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > Fair enough. So the attack scenario is having a rogue state-sponsored app installed on everybody's device (think tik-tok), which steals everybody's private keys The German AusweisApp2 is fully open-source (to protect against the first scenario), and it might be possible to do it in a web app assuming Web NFC gets more widely supported [1]. The second scenario is protected against by the keys being provisioned on the smartcard during manufacture (or, if the user so desires, at the touchpoint where they get handed over the ID card) and being unable to be exposed, at least not without either destructive methods or side-channel attacks. [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_NFC_API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_NFC_API
  - Muromec 3y ago
    Yeah I get how smartcards work, I'm talking about what can practically go wrong if the keys are kept in a secure enclave instead.
    - mschuster91 3y ago
      Malware can go and dump the keys from the Secure Enclave. It's just the same mechanism that pirates use to crack the Widevine decryption, just that it's the strong digital identity of a person towards a government at stake here.