2 ms·

When everything on the wire uses strong crypto, the only useful network data will be metadata. It will be interesting to see how traditional network IDS/IPS evo

by w8rbt 12y ago

When everything on the wire uses strong crypto, the only useful network data will be metadata. It will be interesting to see how traditional network IDS/IPS evolve to handle this. The signatures will be useless when they can't parse plaintext packets. Of course, orgs can always attempt to terminate SSL and do things with the cleartext packets, but that can get dicey. Strong encryption on the wire (in transit) also renews the focus on the end points. The data are plaintext in memory on the devices. If the end points can be compromised, the data access problem is solved. Lot's of people are writing exploits (both good and bad guys) to do that. When you combine network metadata with local device data, you've got a pretty complete picture.

mirimir 12y ago
Right. End-to-end encryption is just one of three key aspects. The second is hiding or randomizing metadata. Old-school Mixmaster nyms with Tor transport and alt.anonymous.messages as inbox does a good job. It's fatal weaknesses are complexity, and consequently small anonymity space. Services such as CounterMail, Tutanota and ProtonMail are taking user-friendly (abeit weaker and proprietary) approaches. DarkMail may eventually be a fundamental solution, but may be too ambitious. The third is end-point security. It's crucial to use full-disk encryption, and to avoid being exploited. That involves both software and wetware hardening. But even that's inadequate. It's essential to compartmentalize unconformable information in separate and isolated compartments. Isolation comprises all aspects: devices, network and Internet connectivity, communication partners, and so on.
- unsignedint 12y ago
  I like to also add an anonymous recipient feature present in OpenPGP. (-R or --throw-keyid for GnuPG) to strip metadata. (Supported at least on GnuPG for encryption/decryption, and Mac version of PGP for decryption. For some reason, not on Windows.) Also, implementations like GnuPG will allow recipient ID to be spoofed, but even less implementation will support it. I believe using this in conjunction with some garbage recipients (with a secret key thrown out immediately after the creation of a public key) will randomize metadata quite well for OpenPGP. EDIT: clarified option switch is for GnuPG

by w8rbt 12y ago

mirimir 12y ago

Right. End-to-end encryption is just one of three key aspects. The second is hiding or randomizing metadata. Old-school Mixmaster nyms with Tor transport and alt.anonymous.messages as inbox does a good job. It's fatal weaknesses are complexity, and consequently small anonymity space. Services such as CounterMail, Tutanota and ProtonMail are taking user-friendly (abeit weaker and proprietary) approaches. DarkMail may eventually be a fundamental solution, but may be too ambitious. The third is end-point security. It's crucial to use full-disk encryption, and to avoid being exploited. That involves both software and wetware hardening. But even that's inadequate. It's essential to compartmentalize unconformable information in separate and isolated compartments. Isolation comprises all aspects: devices, network and Internet connectivity, communication partners, and so on.

unsignedint 12y ago
I like to also add an anonymous recipient feature present in OpenPGP. (-R or --throw-keyid for GnuPG) to strip metadata. (Supported at least on GnuPG for encryption/decryption, and Mac version of PGP for decryption. For some reason, not on Windows.) Also, implementations like GnuPG will allow recipient ID to be spoofed, but even less implementation will support it. I believe using this in conjunction with some garbage recipients (with a secret key thrown out immediately after the creation of a public key) will randomize metadata quite well for OpenPGP. EDIT: clarified option switch is for GnuPG