5 ms·

I'm maybe too naive/optimistic but I think the most likely is that he has been manipulated in co-authoring a document which by itself is innocuous but once coup

by doe88 13y ago

I'm maybe too naive/optimistic but I think the most likely is that he has been manipulated in co-authoring a document which by itself is innocuous but once coupled with a rigged prng might have disastrous effects.

ig1 13y ago
Sure, he might be innocent, but he really needs to put out a statement clarifying what his involvement was and what he knew. Mozilla should probably hire an independent auditor to review all of his code changes. It might be unnecessary but this seems to be a scenario where it's better to play it safe (plus always good to audit security related code).
- Consultant32452 13y ago
  >Sure, he might be innocent, but he really needs to put out a statement clarifying what his involvement was and what he knew. Why does he need to do that? What benefit will it be to him? If he said he was unaware of any underhandedness would you believe him? Do you think that if he was aware that he wouldn't have signed NDAs about these things?
mcphilip 13y ago
Well there's at least one other document coauthored by M Salter and E Rescorla [1], so the notion that Rescorla was manipulated into co-authoring the Extended Random paper has is a bit more problematic since it wasn't a one-off collaboration. [1]http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-tls-suiteb-00 http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-tls-suiteb-00
- tptacek 13y ago
  That's the TLS standard for all of Suite B, which until recently was the de facto standard way virtually all software used elliptic curve crypto. It's not exactly a sketchy RFC. The word "collaboration" is funny here too, given how the IETF works. These people shared a mailing list. Rescorla is perhaps the most experienced person on the Internet at turning TLS WG mailing list discussions into Internet drafts. That his name would be on any number of TLS RFCs is about as surprising as seeing Mockapetris' name on a DNS RFC.
  - mcphilip 13y ago
    Fair enough. I'll admit my speculation is about as useless as hypothesizing Rescola was somehow manipulated by the NSA into putting his name on the extended random paper.

by doe88 13y ago

ig1 13y ago

Sure, he might be innocent, but he really needs to put out a statement clarifying what his involvement was and what he knew. Mozilla should probably hire an independent auditor to review all of his code changes. It might be unnecessary but this seems to be a scenario where it's better to play it safe (plus always good to audit security related code).

Consultant32452 13y ago
>Sure, he might be innocent, but he really needs to put out a statement clarifying what his involvement was and what he knew. Why does he need to do that? What benefit will it be to him? If he said he was unaware of any underhandedness would you believe him? Do you think that if he was aware that he wouldn't have signed NDAs about these things?

mcphilip 13y ago

Well there's at least one other document coauthored by M Salter and E Rescorla [1], so the notion that Rescorla was manipulated into co-authoring the Extended Random paper has is a bit more problematic since it wasn't a one-off collaboration. [1]http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-tls-suiteb-00 http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-tls-suiteb-00

tptacek 13y ago
That's the TLS standard for all of Suite B, which until recently was the de facto standard way virtually all software used elliptic curve crypto. It's not exactly a sketchy RFC. The word "collaboration" is funny here too, given how the IETF works. These people shared a mailing list. Rescorla is perhaps the most experienced person on the Internet at turning TLS WG mailing list discussions into Internet drafts. That his name would be on any number of TLS RFCs is about as surprising as seeing Mockapetris' name on a DNS RFC.
- mcphilip 13y ago
  Fair enough. I'll admit my speculation is about as useless as hypothesizing Rescola was somehow manipulated by the NSA into putting his name on the extended random paper.