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Browser cryptography has its place - the simple fact is that PGP is too hard for everyday users in its current guise (your parents are not going to go to key ex

by flavor8 12y ago

Browser cryptography has its place - the simple fact is that PGP is too hard for everyday users in its current guise (your parents are not going to go to key exchange parties). And, requiring users to install binaries on their computer (which can feasibly come with auto-update) to use encryption has just as high a risk of being subverted by somebody with malicious intent who is trying to target the communications of a particular individual. (Which is harder: acting as MITM in a company's internet traffic, or breaking into the target's Windows desktop?) Mass market encryption is a worthy goal, and browsers are a reasonable platform to achieve that goal. Educating users about not installing extensions that can filter pages in their browsers, recommending incognito mode, etc are good steps. And of course TLS should be considered a minimum requirement for transport. Browser encryption is never going to be military grade, but it's a step up over unencrypted communication.

tptacek 12y ago
PGP being "too hard" doesn't mean that browser crypto "has its place". As I said upthread: if there's a "#1 most common fallacious reasoning strategy" for browser crypto experts, it's this one: "we really need browser crypto to work, therefore it works". No.
- Joeboy 12y ago
  How about the argument that although browser crypto won't render your communications reliably secure, widespread adoption could make it significantly harder to transparently implement mass surveillance? I'm not sure if this argument is actually flawed, or just anathema to grown up cryptographers who prefer hard maths to wishy washy politics/economics?
  - stevejones 12y ago
    The NSA is routinely MITMing connections. How will browser side crypto help if they get to decide what code your browser runs?
    - flavor8 12y ago
      The NSA is routinely intruding on desktop installs. How will client side crypto help if they get to patch binaries on target computers?
      - stevejones 12y ago
        It's harder to intrude on desktop installs. Any anti-NSA strategy should be predicated on a cost basis.
  - marcosdumay 12y ago
    Please, cite any gain that gives over TSL. And if you plan to implement it over unencrypted connections, no, nobody will notice if the NSA does mass interception of those. There is no way to notice it.
    - Joeboy 12y ago
      > Please, cite any gain that gives over TSL. Over TLS? The gain would be that the server doesn't have to see the plaintext. Or at least in order to see a lot of people's plaintext, it will have to get away with sending bad crypto code to a lot of people, some of whom are likely to notice. > if you plan to implement it over unencrypted connections I'm not particularly planning to do anything, but if I was I imagine I would be doing it over TLS.
      - crpatino 12y ago
        > ... in order to see a lot of people's plaintext, it will have to get away with sending bad crypto code to a lot of people, some of whom are likely to notice. I would say that the overlap between the people that are likely to notice (or, for the matter, that are likely to read the reports from those who notice) and the people that benefit the most from transparent, client-side crypto is close to negligible.
- personZ 12y ago
  PGP being "too hard" doesn't mean that browser crypto "has its place". While I've always enormously respected your opinion, you seem to have a very black/white perspective, aggressively attacking and/or belittling anything that isn't an infallible solution, even if it's a significant improvement for many or most scenarios. You don't seem terribly pragmatic in many cases. I realized that long ago in a discussion on passwords and the browser - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2000833 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2000833 So many password incidents since would have been a complete non-incident with such a solution (or anything similar), so I've always remembered your raw negativity because it wasn't a perfect solution: That because it didn't solve every possible issue, it's better to solve no issues.
  - count 12y ago
    Giving users a false sense of security is absolutely worse than making sure they know there is no security.
    - personZ 12y ago
      EDIT: I remain convinced that it is impossible to have any credible security discussion on HN. Everyone just clucks and spouts rhetoric, the Ptacek fan club in full effect. No security solution is absolute, but instead every security approach is a "false sense of security" from some perspective, and every solution is steps on a gradient. Anyone who thinks otherwise is simply naive. Do we eschew SSL rather than give users a "false sense of security"? There are many potential vulnerabilities to SSL, from stealing private keys, to co-opting or compromising root authorities, to more esoteric mathematical vulnerabilities. Yet we still use SSL. We find a pragmatic medium where we achieve the greatest security possible within realistic confines and restrictions, understanding that there are (and always will be) potential weaknesses, and improve as we go. Simply tut-tuting and rote repeating the "false sense of security" nonsense does literally nothing for anyone. It is pseudo-enlightened babble.
      - hluska 12y ago
        Though I don't agree with all of it, I like this comment. Your SSL example is excellent. In the context of online shopping, SSL may protect your credit card number in transit, but it can't protect you from keystroke loggers that intercept the information before it is ever encrypted. Yet, the industry still uses it and people are consistently compromised by malicious software. On the other hand, I'm still learning about crypto, so I find these conversations illuminating. Thinking about ways to attack security, or trying to understand how other people approach attacks has given me a far deeper understanding than merely reading about it. However, that's a personal bias because being critical of what I learn is how I learn. Needless to say, I used to routinely drive teachers crazy...
- flavor8 12y ago
  I don't agree. By "has its place" I don't mean "appropriate for all" - I mean a step up for general security of communications. For mainstream users (who shouldn't even be exposed to the concept of keypairs, since it blows their minds), you can give them a binary client and trust that their desktop isn't compromised, or you can give them a TLS connection and manage your server security.
hnha 12y ago
your parents don't have to use key signing. they can just mail each other their public keys or upload them to a key server. that covers the encryption aspect of pgp. they can verify their identities by sharing secrets but I would expected them to easily notice right away if they are talking with the wrong person...
- flavor8 12y ago
  Parents / mainstream users don't even understand the concept of keys. Keypairs are a technical detail that everyday (/non-apologist) users should not be exposed to.
  - stevejones 12y ago
    Bollocks. Users can be educated. Throwing our hands up and saying that users are too stupid to understand crypto so we have to implement it in ways that don't work is advocating wasting everyone's time. Imagine if the car industry had decided that users wouldn't be able to understand car keys?
    - derefr 12y ago
      You can't teach people to do something less convenient than what they're already doing. Car keys are more convenient than never letting your car out of your sight outside of your own garage (which is what people were doing before car keys.) PKI, as currently imagined, is less convenient than just speaking freely and feeling a nagging sensation that someone might be listening (which is what people are doing now.)
      - stevejones 12y ago
        The difficulties in PKI are not that hard. Most of the problems are social, such as the belief that any implementation of PKI must be absolutely 100% bulletproof. Corporate deployments of PGP with no passphrase make the difficulty of executing spear phishing attacks considerably higher (especially when you consider that these are the usual way of getting initial access to corporate systems).

by flavor8 12y ago

tptacek 12y ago

PGP being "too hard" doesn't mean that browser crypto "has its place". As I said upthread: if there's a "#1 most common fallacious reasoning strategy" for browser crypto experts, it's this one: "we really need browser crypto to work, therefore it works". No.

Joeboy 12y ago
How about the argument that although browser crypto won't render your communications reliably secure, widespread adoption could make it significantly harder to transparently implement mass surveillance? I'm not sure if this argument is actually flawed, or just anathema to grown up cryptographers who prefer hard maths to wishy washy politics/economics?
- stevejones 12y ago
  The NSA is routinely MITMing connections. How will browser side crypto help if they get to decide what code your browser runs?
  - flavor8 12y ago
    The NSA is routinely intruding on desktop installs. How will client side crypto help if they get to patch binaries on target computers?
    - stevejones 12y ago
      It's harder to intrude on desktop installs. Any anti-NSA strategy should be predicated on a cost basis.
- marcosdumay 12y ago
  Please, cite any gain that gives over TSL. And if you plan to implement it over unencrypted connections, no, nobody will notice if the NSA does mass interception of those. There is no way to notice it.
  - Joeboy 12y ago
    > Please, cite any gain that gives over TSL. Over TLS? The gain would be that the server doesn't have to see the plaintext. Or at least in order to see a lot of people's plaintext, it will have to get away with sending bad crypto code to a lot of people, some of whom are likely to notice. > if you plan to implement it over unencrypted connections I'm not particularly planning to do anything, but if I was I imagine I would be doing it over TLS.
    - crpatino 12y ago
      > ... in order to see a lot of people's plaintext, it will have to get away with sending bad crypto code to a lot of people, some of whom are likely to notice. I would say that the overlap between the people that are likely to notice (or, for the matter, that are likely to read the reports from those who notice) and the people that benefit the most from transparent, client-side crypto is close to negligible.
personZ 12y ago
PGP being "too hard" doesn't mean that browser crypto "has its place". While I've always enormously respected your opinion, you seem to have a very black/white perspective, aggressively attacking and/or belittling anything that isn't an infallible solution, even if it's a significant improvement for many or most scenarios. You don't seem terribly pragmatic in many cases. I realized that long ago in a discussion on passwords and the browser - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2000833 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2000833 So many password incidents since would have been a complete non-incident with such a solution (or anything similar), so I've always remembered your raw negativity because it wasn't a perfect solution: That because it didn't solve every possible issue, it's better to solve no issues.
- count 12y ago
  Giving users a false sense of security is absolutely worse than making sure they know there is no security.
  - personZ 12y ago
    EDIT: I remain convinced that it is impossible to have any credible security discussion on HN. Everyone just clucks and spouts rhetoric, the Ptacek fan club in full effect. No security solution is absolute, but instead every security approach is a "false sense of security" from some perspective, and every solution is steps on a gradient. Anyone who thinks otherwise is simply naive. Do we eschew SSL rather than give users a "false sense of security"? There are many potential vulnerabilities to SSL, from stealing private keys, to co-opting or compromising root authorities, to more esoteric mathematical vulnerabilities. Yet we still use SSL. We find a pragmatic medium where we achieve the greatest security possible within realistic confines and restrictions, understanding that there are (and always will be) potential weaknesses, and improve as we go. Simply tut-tuting and rote repeating the "false sense of security" nonsense does literally nothing for anyone. It is pseudo-enlightened babble.
    - hluska 12y ago
      Though I don't agree with all of it, I like this comment. Your SSL example is excellent. In the context of online shopping, SSL may protect your credit card number in transit, but it can't protect you from keystroke loggers that intercept the information before it is ever encrypted. Yet, the industry still uses it and people are consistently compromised by malicious software. On the other hand, I'm still learning about crypto, so I find these conversations illuminating. Thinking about ways to attack security, or trying to understand how other people approach attacks has given me a far deeper understanding than merely reading about it. However, that's a personal bias because being critical of what I learn is how I learn. Needless to say, I used to routinely drive teachers crazy...
flavor8 12y ago
I don't agree. By "has its place" I don't mean "appropriate for all" - I mean a step up for general security of communications. For mainstream users (who shouldn't even be exposed to the concept of keypairs, since it blows their minds), you can give them a binary client and trust that their desktop isn't compromised, or you can give them a TLS connection and manage your server security.

hnha 12y ago

your parents don't have to use key signing. they can just mail each other their public keys or upload them to a key server. that covers the encryption aspect of pgp. they can verify their identities by sharing secrets but I would expected them to easily notice right away if they are talking with the wrong person...

flavor8 12y ago
Parents / mainstream users don't even understand the concept of keys. Keypairs are a technical detail that everyday (/non-apologist) users should not be exposed to.
- stevejones 12y ago
  Bollocks. Users can be educated. Throwing our hands up and saying that users are too stupid to understand crypto so we have to implement it in ways that don't work is advocating wasting everyone's time. Imagine if the car industry had decided that users wouldn't be able to understand car keys?
  - derefr 12y ago
    You can't teach people to do something less convenient than what they're already doing. Car keys are more convenient than never letting your car out of your sight outside of your own garage (which is what people were doing before car keys.) PKI, as currently imagined, is less convenient than just speaking freely and feeling a nagging sensation that someone might be listening (which is what people are doing now.)
    - stevejones 12y ago
      The difficulties in PKI are not that hard. Most of the problems are social, such as the belief that any implementation of PKI must be absolutely 100% bulletproof. Corporate deployments of PGP with no passphrase make the difficulty of executing spear phishing attacks considerably higher (especially when you consider that these are the usual way of getting initial access to corporate systems).