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It depends on who you're trying to protect against. I immediately assumed the government trying to find out who searched for $STRING, implying they have full ac
by sho 18y ago
It depends on who you're trying to protect against. I immediately assumed the government trying to find out who searched for $STRING, implying they have full access to everything else as well.
Seeing that you have the hashed IPs, I assumed you have access to the database and probably physical access to the machine. In that case you would just look at the code, or subpoena a programmer, for the hashing algorithm.
It wouldn't be anywhere near as easy if you were dealing with some custom algorithm, especially if it were salted, but I can't really think of a situation where you'd have the records but not the rest. Why would hackers be trying to find out which IP searched for what? It's a government thing, surely.
- axod 18y agoOh sure point taken, if you have the hashes and the hashing algorithm, as you say - it's only a 4 byte input, wouldn't be too hard. You could make the hashing algorithm change over time, which would make things a little harder to reverse. Perhaps my original comment was a little knee jerk, just seems like a problem that has been solved.
- sho 18y agoSolved problem? Sorry to harp on about this but I'll go all out and say it's an _unsolvable_ problem. If you store IP addresses, in any form whatsoever, and you have a process that can take an IP and consistently convert it to the form in your store for lookup - without which, of course, there is no point storing them at all - then because of the small possible set of IPv4 addresses, that system can be quickly and easily brute-forced and the records recovered in full. The only way to store IP addresses such that they cannot be recovered with sufficient leverage (ie, govt) is to not store them at all. Even storing them in memory is not safe - just ask TorrentSpy. The article is light on details but I have a strong suspicion that the ground-breaking "technological development" they are referring to is otherwise known as the "cookie".
- axod 18y agoWell. Storing anything securely depends on some 'secret' information. If you're assuming the 'secret' information can be made public, then of course, it's an unsolvable problem - you can never store anything securely.
- sho 18y agoI think we're talking about different things : ) When I consider a search engine obscuring the IP addresses for its search records, I assume the "enemy" is the government. It's governments who want to know who's been searching for child porn and bomb-making instructions. They want the IPs, and they can get the algorithm. Now if you're talking about someone with less resources, who can get the obfuscated records but not everything else, your arguments make perfect sense, but I can't imagine who'd be interested other than governments.