Re: removing keygen from HTML

On Tue, 31 May 2016, at 14:12, Harry Halpin wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, May 31, 2016 at 1:40 AM, Reto Gmür <reto@gmuer.ch> wrote:
>> __
>>
>> On Tue, 31 May 2016, at 10:04, Harry Halpin wrote:
>>> I do not know anyone from the cryptographic or security community
>>> that would support keeping <keygen>. Indeed, the default response
>>> from the security/crypto community would be to drop <keygen> due to
>>> legacy usage of MD5 and violation of security boundaries (SOP).
>>
>> That would also be my response if I was employed by the NSA and
>> wanted to prevent technologies that allow user controlled strong
>> cryptography and decentralized networks of trust (as enabled by
>> webId).
>>
>
> Reto,
> That was both an idiotic and offensive statement. Can you explain how
> amateur crypto and home-brewed protocols that no-one in the security
> or crypto community reviewed or supports is the way to fight the NSA?
I had no intent to be offensive, so I would like to apologize for that.
 
However, I don't apologize for the idiotic part. I'm sure keygen has
many flaws in its design, yet it allowed idiots like me to create key-
pairs without the secret key ever leaving the browser and to be able to
share the public key (or its hash) so that others can confirm my
identity (as it happens with WebId). If there is now an easy and elegant
replacement API that gives the user more control while still allowing
what keygen allowed I'm happy with that.
 
But if keygen is removed before a replacement is there,this is at very
least sending the wrong signal. Rather than contemptuously writing
about home-brewd protocols please provide home-brewer with
alternatives. Idiots like me that didn't realize that md5 is
vulnerable to differential modular attacks are happy to change to a
more secure hashing algorithm. However just closing the door of
keygen, saying that the experts are working doesn't seem to be a way
to encourage people with an appropriate cognitive model of the
cryptographic infrastructure to go on hacking on more secure ways of
communicating and managing identities. I would like a majority of
people to understand how public and private keys are used, know how to
sign and encrypt and be competent when making decisions about trusting
a party. Removing keygen doesn't seem to promote this, however
defining new standards that make applications like WebId easier, more
elegant and more secure certainly does.
 
Cheers,
Reto
 
> Myself and many others support strong cryptography and decentralized
> networks of trust, and fully support that effort. Rather than
> attribute the use of broken technology to protocols to NSA, it's also
> possibly due to lack of education.
>
> Thus, you may want to look at:
>
> 1) MD5 security issues are well-known and documented:
> http://merlot.usc.edu/csac-f06/papers/Wang05a.pdf
> 2) In practice, the WebID+TLS community should use modern crypto and
>    the Web Security model rather than attempt to build on top of an
>    broken, obscure, and unstandardised browser behaviour. If you want
>    to fight the NSA by building new protocols on the Web, I recommend
>    taking a class that explains how Web security works. Videos are
>    available from this MIT course explain modern Web Security,
>    including the Same Origin Policy:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1C62Twf0vs
>
> Hopefully others will be more reasonable, but you may wish to
> familiarize yourself with this thread rather than endlessly repeat it.
> https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/blink-dev/pX5NbX0Xack
> Note that we're just modernizing with W3C Web Authentication secure
> and modern cryptographic one-factor authentication to use modern
> primitives and respect user privacy. You are more than welcome to join
> the Working Group as an Invited Expert, although an expert should be
> aware of the basics of security.
> Although there are a number of inaccuracies in this report in terms of
> WebCrypto, it's pretty clear Web Authentication matches all
> requirements in Section 6 here:
> http://w3ctag.github.io/client-certificates/
> Thus, it makes sense to hold off and deprecate <keygen> after the fall
> of this year, when Web Authentication is deployed in browsers. As
> stated earlier, the "WebID" community can simply use Web
> Authentication rather than client certs for authentication.
>
> That being said, since the only browser that supports <keygen>
> currently is Mozilla, who plans to deprecate regardless of what the
> TAG says, then it can also be justified to remove from the standard
> today as there is no interoperability.
>
> cheers,
> harry
>
>
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Reto
>>
>>
 
--
Reto Gmür
reto@gmuer.ch