Another entry in the internet security hall of shame....

[james hughes]

In listening to this thread hearing all the hyperbole on both sides,  
I would suggest that we may need more fuel to the fire.

There was a rump presentation at the recent Crypto on the use of  
"Ceremonies" (which, pardon my misstatement in advance, is claimed to  
be computer protocols with the humans included). The presentation  
states, "Design a great protocol, prove it secure; add a user, it’s  
insecure". This specifically discusses SSL.

The entire rump session is at
    http://www.iacr.org/conferences/crypto2005/rumpSchedule.html

scroll down to
    Ceremonies by Carl Ellison

The presentation and video
    http://www.iacr.org/conferences/crypto2005/r/48.ppt
    http://www.iacr.org/conferences/crypto2005/r/48.mov

The video is about 50MB.

Thanks

jim

On Aug 28, 2005, at 10:32 PM, James A. Donald wrote:

>     --
> From:               Dave Howe <DaveHowe at gmx.co.uk>
>
>> 2) Google got into the CA business; namely, all
>> GoogleMail owners suddenly found they could send and
>> receive S/Mime messages from their googlemail
>> accounts, using a certificate that "just appeared" and
>> was signed by the GoogleMail master cert. Given the
>> GoogleMail user base, this could make GoogleMail a
>> defacto CA in days.
>>
>> 3) This certificate was downloaded to your GoogleTalk
>> client on login, and NEVER cached locally
>>
>> Ok, from a Security Professional's POV this would be a
>> horror - certificates all generated by the CA (with no
>> guarantees they aren't available to third parties) but
>> it *would* bootstrap X509 into common usage,
>>
>
> That horse is dead.  It is not going into common usage.
>
> SSL works in practice, X509 with CA certs does not work
> in practice.  People have been bullied into using it by
> their browsers, but it does not give the protection
> intended, because people do what is necessary to avoid
> being nagged by browsers, not what is necessary to be
> secure.
>
>     --digsig
>          James A. Donald
>      6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
>      mQ0rM7wYdVTuoeMRUcrpDc1V9pUqhEgUmJMtyCZZ
>      469u1yKDDCKWaUWwU/LYyE/7CVNRZV7OjXCs+Kyyc
>
>
>
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