RE: On Crypto API Safety in the Hands of Unskilled Developers

My 2c - it is better to keep high-level considerations separate from the low-level API.

As you observed, an API that specifies automatic generation of values (such as IVs) must also define a format for serializing these with its output, otherwise the developer's life becomes complicated. Now, there are really two types of applications in the world:

1. Those who wish to communicate with peers that already have a well-defined protocol. This type of application must be bit-compatible with the existing protocol and therefore will only use the low-level API.

2. Those who wish to communicate with peers who are not so encumbered with existing protocols (storage applications also fall in this class since you are just communicating with future-you). These people will use a simple high-level protocol of the form box()/unbox(). Ideally all parameter choices will be magically made for them.

It may appear at first that there is a space between these extremes, e.g. with developers who wish to specify IVs and such but want other parameters chosen automatically for them, such as chaining mode and block padding type. However reasonable people often differ on the ideal choice of default parameters, and best practice evolves over time. So this case really devolves into #2 if you want interoperability.

So it looks like we really need a high-level API that developers can use without venturing into "subtle crypto" territory, but this does not tell us much about the low-level API.

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Barnes [mailto:rbarnes@bbn.com] 
Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2013 2:01 PM
To: public-webcrypto@w3.org Working Group
Subject: Re: On Crypto API Safety in the Hands of Unskilled Developers

By the way, to the working group more broadly:

Ryan and I have been going back and forth on this for a while.  If anyone else has an opinion, I'm sure the group would be glad to hear it.

--Richard




On Mar 28, 2013, at 11:20 AM, Richard Barnes <rbarnes@bbn.com> wrote:

> The SubtleCrypto thread reminded me that I'd been meaning to send out some notes I wrote down about unskilled developers.
> 
> Brief essay follows.  Comments welcome.
> 
> --Richard
> 
> 
> 
> On Crypto API Safety in the Hands of Unskilled Developers 
> =========================================================
> 
> I. What is the problem (general)?
> ---------------------------------
> 
> The current API's approach of exposing unmitigated complexity to the developer -- no defaults, no help from the browser -- is only plausible if we assume that the only people who will use the API are experienced cryptographers.  This assumption is clearly not true.  Any API that is supplied in the DOM will be exposed to, and get used by, a much wider variety of developers than we ever intend.
> 
> That's true of any DOM API, whether it's crypto, geolocation, canvas, etc.  But crypto is special.  
> 
> -- Bad crypto design leads to worse consequences
> -- Bad crypto design is hard to detect
> 
> The whole point of having a crypto API is to protect sensitive things.  So by definition, if you screw up your usage of the crypto API, you are exposing sensitive things.  Moreover, if this happens, you are likely not to notice it.  If you screw up your WebGL rendering code, things will look bad.  If you re-use the same nonce twice in GCM, nothing is obviously different.
> 
> So in its current state, the API makes it likely for bad things to happen.  It would be irresponsible of this group to release an API in this state.  We need to think seriously about how to make the default mode of the API less likely to lead to pain, while still allowing for full generality.
> 
> Think of this like consumer protection.  You can't ship a lawn mower that doesn't have a guard around the blade.  Someone can buy a lawn mower, take off the guard, and use the motor and blade in new and creative ways, at the risk of injuring himself.  Even if someone isn't doing something advanced, they can still stick their hand under the guard and get cut.  But by default, in most use cases, the lawn mower is safe to use.
> 
> 
> 
> II. What is the problem (specific)?
> -----------------------------------
> 
> Conceptually, there are two classes of CryptoOperation: "Plain to ciphertext" operations that convert plaintext to data with cryptographic structure, and "Cipher to plaintext" operations that do the reverse.
> 
> P2C       C2P
> -----------------
> sign	  verify
> encrypt	  decrypt
> digest      
> 
> The difference is this: P2C operations can meaningfully be done with many different choices of parameters.  C2P operations can only be done with a specific set of parameters.
> 
> Both of these create problems for developers.  
> 
> For P2C operations, the developer must choose how to set multiple parameters, choices that are likely not obvious to someone not skilled in the art.  
> For C2P operations, the developer needs to make sure that they keep all the relevant parameters together with protected information.
> 
> So we have two problems:
> P2C: How to help developers make good choices
> C2P: How to help developers keep ciphertext associated to parameters
> 
> 
> 
> III. What would a solution look like?
> -------------------------------------
> 
> On the face of it, the P2C problem -- choosing parameters -- seems easy to solve.  If there are multiple valid sets of parameters, just have the browser / API implementation make the choice on behalf of the developer.  
> 
> However, this exacerbates the C2P problem, because there are now many ways for the ciphertext to be separated from its parameters.  If a web app does not store the parameters with which the ciphertext was computed (relying on the browser's defaults), then if the browser changes defaults, then the app will be unable to decrypt the ciphertext (or validate the signature).  Even if the app stores the parameters, then it needs to make sure that the ciphertext is always associated with the correct parameters; the app cannot, for example, send the ciphertext for storage on a server, but not the parameters.
> 
> So in order to solve the P2C problem, we also need to solve the C2P problem.  Namely, we need to make it easy by default for apps to keep parameters and ciphertext together.  In API terms, that would seem to indicate that the results of a crypto operation should be provided as an object that contains all the relevant parameters (as indeed, CryptoOperation already does).  In addition, it would be helpful if this object had a default serialization, to address the issue of parameters getting lost when the object is stored or sent someplace else.
> 
> This gives us two solutions to match the two problems:
> P2C: Provide browser-chosen defaults
> C2P: Provide results in an object with parameters and a serialization
> 
> These don't prevent developers from running into problems -- choosing bad IVs, or deleting default parameters from the object -- but it encourages a default life-cycle that should be problem free:
> * Process plaintext, get ciphertext+parameters
> * Store ciphertext+parameters
> * Process ciphertext+parameters, get plaintext
> 
> These solutions also don't get in the way of more advanced developers.  You can still specify all the parameters, and still use whatever parts of the object you want.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>

Received on Tuesday, 2 April 2013 08:32:57 UTC