4 ms·
I always found it astonishing that security and integrity of the internet often rests upon “but TCP sequence numbers are unguessable”
by hamilyon2 2y ago
I always found it astonishing that security and integrity of the internet often rests upon “but TCP sequence numbers are unguessable”
- suprjami 2y agoTCP sequence numbers are not a security mechanism, they are a data ordering mechanism. If you want security, use encryption like IPSec or TLS. This has been the state of things since TCP was invented in 1980. Someone new discovers it all the time.
- sambazi 2y agosecurity is never perfect and the bar is rising. sequence numbers were once considered 'good enough' as prime-factors are today
- immibis 2y agoThey are effectively authentication cookies, but the cookies are too short, but at least they turn over frequently and you have to send a few gigabytes of data to guess one. Almost every internet security mechanism relies on nobody guessing secret numbers, but normally they are sized appropriately.
- goodpoint 2y agoThat's why we had to invent TLS (and now QUIC)