At 10:23 PM 3/29/2001 -0800, Eric Rescorla wrote:
>> At 09:40 AM 3/28/2001 -0800, you wrote:
>> >> At 08:08 AM 3/28/2001 -0800, Eric Rescorla wrote:
>> >> >Huh? You don't consider people using SSL to send their credit
>> >> >card numbers around to be large scale deployment?
>> >>
>> >> <opinions>
>> >> I do not consider SSL to be a success from a security view.
>> >This is a widely held belief but I don't think it stands up
>> >to much examination.
>> >
>>
>> Go take a look at the GAO report at one of these URLs. There's
>> a section discussing SSL. It lays to rest any security illusions
>> about SSL (basically there's not much security to it).
>I read it. Theres no new information here.
>

Right. However it is an important examination, listing all
the security flaws of SSL.

>> Hmm...you should take a look at code the *above* average
>> programmer writes while using a library (like the Phaos SSLava).
>I have and I agree that in general people screw it up.
>
>> They'll accept a signature chain of certs that includes a
>> self/signed server cert (be it Verisign or some other CA).
>> After examining three products from one fairly large software
>> firm, I come to the conclusion that maybe close to 100% of
>> the apps using SSL are deeply flawed from a security point of
>> view. My observations include mistakes such as using software
>> to generate random number seeds and sharing the same
>> private/public key pair among multiple users or machines.
>This really doesn't have anything specific to do with SSL. These are
>the kind of errors that can be (and frequently are) made with any
>cryptographic protocol. You might as well argue that cryptography as
>a whole is pointless.
>

I disagree. SSL cannot be examined in isolation. It must be
examined in the context of a system. To date it has been
a difficult piece to fit into any system requiring a secure
transport by competent programmers (who are not into security
like us). It on x.509 certs has been a head ache for these
programmers.

>> >> IMHO, SSL is a success in a marketing view, nothing more
>> >Before SSL we had lots of examples of passwords being sniffed
>> >off the wire. I don't know of any instance where someone has
>> >managed to compromise an SSL session and recover a credit
>> >card # in the wild. Do you? If not, it seems to me that
>> >this is a pretty good argument that SSL is a success from
>> >a security perspective as well.
>> >
>>
>> Really? Given the way an IP routing network operates, I suspect
>> that this very message I'm sending you is broken up into small
>> packets and sent helter skelter all over the net only to be properly
>> reassembled by your IP stack. Anyone out in the wild will have
>> a heck of a time getting enough of them to make much sense of my
>> typing.
>There are plenty of opportunities for this sort of attack.
>See, for instance, CERT 94-14.
>
>http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-1994-01.html
>

I am not arguing that these cannot occur. It's just that they are
unlikely compared with stealing unencrypted databases of credit card
numbers. Beside even these are snooped off the wire, we're talking
onsey, twosey type stuff (mainly because of the effectively random
routes each packet takes), plus Visa limits our liability.

>-Ekr
>

--
Alex Alten
AltenHome.Com

• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]