4 ms·

An interesting data point from the boilerplate about the RSA in a press release [1]: "With approximately a billion RSA BSAFE-enabled applications in use worldw

An interesting data point from the boilerplate about the RSA in a press release [1]: "With approximately a billion RSA BSAFE-enabled applications in use worldwide, more than nine million RSA SecurID authentication users and almost 20 years of industry experience, RSA Security has the proven leadership and innovative technology to address the changing security needs of e-business and bring trust to the new, online economy." I know this submission has been flagged off the front page, but I'm curious on your opinion if this number is misleading. [1]http://www.tgc.com/dsstar/01/0724/103320.html http://www.tgc.com/dsstar/01/0724/103320.html

tptacek 13y ago
Let me just say that when my brain tries to survey the landscape for products that use crypto, it mentally discounts all the SecurID tokens; it doesn't occur to me to think about the RSA in-house products that use BSAFE. So yes, there's another group of deployed products that use commercial crypto libraries, because they're sold by a company that also owns a commercial crypto library. My reasoning about this mostly comes from the fact that products usually don't use commercial crypto libraries.
- lawnchair_larry 13y ago
  Oh man, you DELETED your comment! I was replying and lost it, so it will be reproduced here due to quoting, as it is important to me that your backpedal of the century be committed to the historical record. -- First off, my comment wasn't out of spite or anything. I would call it a friendly jab. I'm guilty of reaching temporary frustration in some previous discussions with you over civil liberties and privacy, which may have colored a few comments, but I totally respect you and don't generally disagree with you on technical matters. I'm not even going to pretend I have a leg up on you anywhere related to security. I'm sure when the day comes that there is an obscure subtopic of security for which this is the case, it will quickly become known though! (The civil liberties issues are another story, because your opinion is in fact wrong on all issues related to civil liberties, along with seemingly everybody in your "must read" list. Yes, that's a joke. Kind of.) > Nobody does use it. How important a product do you think this is? Isn't it basically a commercial packaging of rsaref? > Name a piece of crypto technology that you or, say, Moxie Marlinspike or, I don't know, Jacob Appelbaum relies on that uses Dual_EC. I don't know who uses it, but that's kind of the point. I don't think anyone can really have a good idea of who uses it or who ships it as a default, we can just know who doesn't. It's in the standard, so my assumption is that it's not unlikely that someone chose it, perhaps in a proprietary implementation in corners of the internet that are not the most obvious. The fact that RSA sell it strongly reinforces my suspicion that it's in more places than you think. > What's frustrating are the people who insist on taking the wrong message away from what I'm saying. I'm not defending Dual_EC. I imagine that I have the exact same perspective on it that Matthew Green does. I don't think anyone thinks you're defending it (I certainly don't), just that you think that it's not a concern worthy of paying attention to. On the other hand, Matthew Green seems rather disturbed by the recent revelations. The interest in this topic involves more than a specific backdoor that got into a widespread implementation and who isn't likely affected by that particular instance. > Also: how was this comment helpful? Yours will obviously be the top comment on this thread, and it's basically about, what are the implications of this blog post on the 'tptacek HN persona?" Is that all you have to talk about? Yes, that was all I had to talk about. It was just a casual comment, and I didn't intend nor expect it to be the top. But I did have a point: You are the most well-known commenter around here. and everybody looks to you for crypto and security expertise. Sometimes you get rather adamant about whichever position you adopt, which might mix opinion in with fact from time to time. You know what you're talking about dan you're usually right. However, forces that govern our universe guarantee that if one makes bold and authoritative claims on the internet that turn out to be less than correct, the strength of the claim and the number of times it is repeated are proportional to the promptness with which someone else will present something to challenge the claim. (Edit: I wrote this before noticing all of the top comments in this thread came to say the same thing. Come on, you have to chuckle...) I know you understand this because you do it all the time :P Do you want to hear about my 100% undetectable rootkit? Anyway, I just disagreed with your dismissive comments on other threads as though it's nothing that we need to discuss. I get why one of your missions is to be the Outrage Police, but I think you're overzealous about it from time to time. I know, I'm sure I'm overzealous with my pitchfork as well... > How many threads have you and I managed to find something to argue about in information security and privacy? How many times have I top-commented a thread about you? I don't because wow, is that ever boring. I'm not really sure why you're making it personal. For one thing, I'm not important enough to get a top comment about in a thread I haven't yet posted in ;) I don't think I have a habit of dominating those discussions, nor do I think I have enough credibility to do. It probably has more to do with that than being boring. But why do your questions take for granted that your commenting habits are the benchmark for appropriate behavior? Is that not just a tad arrogant? > Later edit: BSAFE is apparently used in some way by some popular consumer electronics products that I've never taken a close look at, so I was wrong about that. My point about the pervasiveness (or lack thereof) of Dual_EC stands.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    I deleted my comment because I was just helping you make this thread be about me, which is the most boring thing you could possibly make it out of. I have no idea what the "100% undetectable rootkit" thing is about; if you're referring to the talk me, Nate Lawson, and Peter Ferrie did about Joanna Rutkowska's "Blue Pill", our talk made the exact opposite claim --- that virtualization did not make rootkits undetectable. Look: you don't offend me. I do not mind if you think I'm wrong about stuff. I'm just frustrated because I like Matthew Green's blog, and your comment hijacked the thread. I'm sure you didn't mean it to, but it was obvious to me that it would.
    - lawnchair_larry 13y ago
      No, you might want to re-read what I said about the rootkit thing. I'm saying you understand the compulsion to "call out" a bold claim. The joke was supposed to be me claiming that I have an undetectable rootkit, and you will then be sent on a highly publicized mission to debunk that, which was in fact referring to the Blue Pill Drama. That's actually where I first heard of your company, and when I first came to HN and saw your name, I recognized you as "the rootkit debate guy with the company that I sometimes accidentally call Monsanto". </joke explainer> I'm a bit surprised that you aren't just saying "haha, ok, looks like I called that one wrong." You actually say that you don't care if I think you're wrong. You are not a good sport, sir. I don't feel like I detracted from Matthew Green's blog by commenting on an unrelated site. Also, I'm going to play the "everybody else came here to say the same thing" card to dodge any guilt. But who are you kidding? Every crypto thread on HN is about you, whether you like it or not. Most HN readers hit the comments like before seeing the article, just to see what you have to say about it. I know because I'm one of them. That's not a complaint either, I rely on the expertise of others to balance claims put forth in articles being circulated, and you and marshray are awesome commenters for that reason, because you kind of act as a bridge between academic crypto people and non-crypto security people.
      - tptacek 13y ago
        I wasn't wrong about Dual_EC! Also: that's not why we did the Blue Pill talk. It drives me a little nuts that people (incl. Joanna Rutkowska) thought it was. We did the talk because it was a fun talk. All the code for that talk was kernel code, much of it coding directly to MSRs, looking for fiddley places where the presence of a hypervisor would queer measurement results. And we came up with a bunch of cool ideas! And, it turns out we're (mostly) right. But it seems like all people wanted to pay attention to was the drama. Anyways, I'm explaining things because I can't resist explaining them, not because this is an important issue for us to work out.
chris_wot 13y ago
Why has it been flagged off the front page?
- icelancer 13y ago
  It has strayed well off-topic. Even though I think it should stay on the front page, it is fairly obvious why it has been buried.

tptacek 13y ago

Let me just say that when my brain tries to survey the landscape for products that use crypto, it mentally discounts all the SecurID tokens; it doesn't occur to me to think about the RSA in-house products that use BSAFE. So yes, there's another group of deployed products that use commercial crypto libraries, because they're sold by a company that also owns a commercial crypto library. My reasoning about this mostly comes from the fact that products usually don't use commercial crypto libraries.

lawnchair_larry 13y ago
Oh man, you DELETED your comment! I was replying and lost it, so it will be reproduced here due to quoting, as it is important to me that your backpedal of the century be committed to the historical record. -- First off, my comment wasn't out of spite or anything. I would call it a friendly jab. I'm guilty of reaching temporary frustration in some previous discussions with you over civil liberties and privacy, which may have colored a few comments, but I totally respect you and don't generally disagree with you on technical matters. I'm not even going to pretend I have a leg up on you anywhere related to security. I'm sure when the day comes that there is an obscure subtopic of security for which this is the case, it will quickly become known though! (The civil liberties issues are another story, because your opinion is in fact wrong on all issues related to civil liberties, along with seemingly everybody in your "must read" list. Yes, that's a joke. Kind of.) > Nobody does use it. How important a product do you think this is? Isn't it basically a commercial packaging of rsaref? > Name a piece of crypto technology that you or, say, Moxie Marlinspike or, I don't know, Jacob Appelbaum relies on that uses Dual_EC. I don't know who uses it, but that's kind of the point. I don't think anyone can really have a good idea of who uses it or who ships it as a default, we can just know who doesn't. It's in the standard, so my assumption is that it's not unlikely that someone chose it, perhaps in a proprietary implementation in corners of the internet that are not the most obvious. The fact that RSA sell it strongly reinforces my suspicion that it's in more places than you think. > What's frustrating are the people who insist on taking the wrong message away from what I'm saying. I'm not defending Dual_EC. I imagine that I have the exact same perspective on it that Matthew Green does. I don't think anyone thinks you're defending it (I certainly don't), just that you think that it's not a concern worthy of paying attention to. On the other hand, Matthew Green seems rather disturbed by the recent revelations. The interest in this topic involves more than a specific backdoor that got into a widespread implementation and who isn't likely affected by that particular instance. > Also: how was this comment helpful? Yours will obviously be the top comment on this thread, and it's basically about, what are the implications of this blog post on the 'tptacek HN persona?" Is that all you have to talk about? Yes, that was all I had to talk about. It was just a casual comment, and I didn't intend nor expect it to be the top. But I did have a point: You are the most well-known commenter around here. and everybody looks to you for crypto and security expertise. Sometimes you get rather adamant about whichever position you adopt, which might mix opinion in with fact from time to time. You know what you're talking about dan you're usually right. However, forces that govern our universe guarantee that if one makes bold and authoritative claims on the internet that turn out to be less than correct, the strength of the claim and the number of times it is repeated are proportional to the promptness with which someone else will present something to challenge the claim. (Edit: I wrote this before noticing all of the top comments in this thread came to say the same thing. Come on, you have to chuckle...) I know you understand this because you do it all the time :P Do you want to hear about my 100% undetectable rootkit? Anyway, I just disagreed with your dismissive comments on other threads as though it's nothing that we need to discuss. I get why one of your missions is to be the Outrage Police, but I think you're overzealous about it from time to time. I know, I'm sure I'm overzealous with my pitchfork as well... > How many threads have you and I managed to find something to argue about in information security and privacy? How many times have I top-commented a thread about you? I don't because wow, is that ever boring. I'm not really sure why you're making it personal. For one thing, I'm not important enough to get a top comment about in a thread I haven't yet posted in ;) I don't think I have a habit of dominating those discussions, nor do I think I have enough credibility to do. It probably has more to do with that than being boring. But why do your questions take for granted that your commenting habits are the benchmark for appropriate behavior? Is that not just a tad arrogant? > Later edit: BSAFE is apparently used in some way by some popular consumer electronics products that I've never taken a close look at, so I was wrong about that. My point about the pervasiveness (or lack thereof) of Dual_EC stands.
- tptacek 13y ago
  I deleted my comment because I was just helping you make this thread be about me, which is the most boring thing you could possibly make it out of. I have no idea what the "100% undetectable rootkit" thing is about; if you're referring to the talk me, Nate Lawson, and Peter Ferrie did about Joanna Rutkowska's "Blue Pill", our talk made the exact opposite claim --- that virtualization did not make rootkits undetectable. Look: you don't offend me. I do not mind if you think I'm wrong about stuff. I'm just frustrated because I like Matthew Green's blog, and your comment hijacked the thread. I'm sure you didn't mean it to, but it was obvious to me that it would.
  - lawnchair_larry 13y ago
    No, you might want to re-read what I said about the rootkit thing. I'm saying you understand the compulsion to "call out" a bold claim. The joke was supposed to be me claiming that I have an undetectable rootkit, and you will then be sent on a highly publicized mission to debunk that, which was in fact referring to the Blue Pill Drama. That's actually where I first heard of your company, and when I first came to HN and saw your name, I recognized you as "the rootkit debate guy with the company that I sometimes accidentally call Monsanto". </joke explainer> I'm a bit surprised that you aren't just saying "haha, ok, looks like I called that one wrong." You actually say that you don't care if I think you're wrong. You are not a good sport, sir. I don't feel like I detracted from Matthew Green's blog by commenting on an unrelated site. Also, I'm going to play the "everybody else came here to say the same thing" card to dodge any guilt. But who are you kidding? Every crypto thread on HN is about you, whether you like it or not. Most HN readers hit the comments like before seeing the article, just to see what you have to say about it. I know because I'm one of them. That's not a complaint either, I rely on the expertise of others to balance claims put forth in articles being circulated, and you and marshray are awesome commenters for that reason, because you kind of act as a bridge between academic crypto people and non-crypto security people.
    - tptacek 13y ago
      I wasn't wrong about Dual_EC! Also: that's not why we did the Blue Pill talk. It drives me a little nuts that people (incl. Joanna Rutkowska) thought it was. We did the talk because it was a fun talk. All the code for that talk was kernel code, much of it coding directly to MSRs, looking for fiddley places where the presence of a hypervisor would queer measurement results. And we came up with a bunch of cool ideas! And, it turns out we're (mostly) right. But it seems like all people wanted to pay attention to was the drama. Anyways, I'm explaining things because I can't resist explaining them, not because this is an important issue for us to work out.

chris_wot 13y ago

Why has it been flagged off the front page?

icelancer 13y ago
It has strayed well off-topic. Even though I think it should stay on the front page, it is fairly obvious why it has been buried.