>>>AA6YQ comments --- In digitalradio@yahoogroups.com, "DuBose Walt Civ AETC CONS/LGCA" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
BTW Dave...if I come up to your neck of the woods, I'll take you out to some place that you can recommend that serves good crab cakes, New England Clam Chowder and lobster. >>>You're on, Walt! I'm giving a DXLab presentation at the ARRL New England Division Convention in Boxborough MA on Saturday morning; if you happen to be around, stop by. >snip< 1. If we could reliably distinguish attack payloads from valid payloads, we'd already be doing this on the internet -- where its easier to accomplish given the hierarchical routing structure. Our ability to detect attack payloads has significantly improved over time, but are far from 100% -- in part because we're chasing a moving target. *** I would disagree because DNS, routers, switches, network management software, load balancing, firewall, filters all are virtually not seen by the human eye and sometimes when there is an "automatic" notification of a problem or new "hack" is used, its days before its known. If you don't what the attack is going to look like, you have a hard time defending against it. That's it...for every measure there is a counter-measure. For every counter-measure there is a measure. Its a FAST moving target. >>>All true. That's why increasingly, these network components can be rapidly updated to deal with new threats. And this is the reason I think a scaled down simple network would be less of a target. >>>The system you propose would not be simple, Walt. On how many versions of how many different operating systems would it run? What other applications would also be installed on these systems, downloaded from who knows where? How would you ever establish initial security, much less maintain security in the face of new installs and upgrades initiated by the user and the constantly changing threat environment? The attacker would first have to get on the air, establish their credentials and be accepted to the network. >>>This is trivial; if any US amateur can authenticate, anyone can authenticate. But even without this, a user-operated node could be penetrated by a bot embedded in software downloaded from the internet months or even years earlier. Even my encrypted signature mail folder on occasion gets SPAM. If I restrict my incoming E-Mail to only one known valid domain, I have no SPAM unless messages from my network control center are considered SPAM. I wanna use the KISS theory. >>>You'll have no control over what the user loads on the PC that's running your HF messaging application, KISS ("keep it simple, stupid") won't help you. 2. Since we can't distinguish attack payloads from valid payloads, your HF-based system would be equally vulnerable. What would stop an attacker from injecting an attack payload into your system that when delivered to its destination exploits a buffer overrun in the operating system and installs a bot that can then be commanded by subsequently delivered messages? Since it relies on HF links, your proposed system requires large numbers of user-operated nodes to perform the routing and terminal functions; it would be trivial for an attacker to join this system, operate one or more nodes, and use them to inject his attack. *** Its really to install a "bot" or any malware if your system is 90% text based. Before MIME E-Mail, malware was unknown. We take a GIANT leap backwards. KISS. Hi Hi. >>>As I point out above, the message isn't the only entry point -- there's other's whatever else the end user has installed on his or her node. >>>I don't think your point regarding MIME being the enabler for malware is accurate. And without MIME or something similar, how will your system deliver attachments? *** If you try to join my system and I can't authenticate your call sign, you ain't gettin in. With no hard feelings to non-U.S. amateur radio operators, I talking about only U.S. amateur radio operators. Any "tribal" contacts would be between only specific authorized stations. (BTW "tribal" is the international politically correct name to be used for sovereign nation.) >>>Penetrating this sort of system would be all too easy, Walt. It happens thousands of times each day. I did not say that an attack on the internet would bring down your proposed HF-based system. I said that an attacker would be foolish to bring down the internet without simultaneously bringing down your backup system. This would be accomplished with independent but synchronized attacks. *** Ok...understand and that is true but again we have made it more complicated to the enemy...and the society that enemy comes from is not know for a large scale amateur radio contingent or operational capability nor is their government know for its RF capability. They are well known for their Internet capability. Know your enemy. >>>A committed adversary will locate all weak points, and attack accordingly. Assuming that your opponent is naive would not be good judgement. >snip< A parallel email system implemented with the same software technology used in today's internet would provide no increase in protection from a committed attacker. None of the amateur protocols in use today were designed to resist intentional attack. Inspecting these applications with static analysis tools would likely reveal long lists of vulnerabilities. *** Agree and I don't propose using current E-Mail software, amateur radio or commercial. One other thing, and I know this is very controversial, but we can use encryption for network control and transmission control which the Internet as a whole doesn't do...except for VPNs. And I might mention that there is some assumption by Internet gurus that some VPN circuits might well be able to withstand a cyber-attack. I know the VPN that I run for my office use isn't even hackable by our network gurus. >>>VPN and other encryption-based approaches guarantees the integrity and privacy of the packets they convey. They do not prevent an attack payload from corrupting the destination system after decryption. The "redundancy from multiple identical systems" approach only works when you can deploy so many independent systems that an attacker cannot hope to disable them all, and is thus deterred from attacking any. This may work with strategic weapons, but no one remotely understands how to manage thousands of independent worldwide email systems. *** Well if we have hundreds of independent RF networks that we can "patch together" if needed, we may well over come this problem. I would have to disagree with you last statement that "no one remotely understands how to manage thousands of independent worldwide email systems." because this some of the very "stuff" that some of the ARRL HSMM WG members are talking about and that the organizations they work for are actually working on this. What can be done with an ad hoc mesh network scaled down to an HF level I believe is workable especially if you are not really mobile. >>>Sorry, I must not have been clear. By "thousands of independent worldwide email systems", I didn't mean one email system with thousands of independent nodes. I meant thosands of independent email systems, each with thousands of independent nodes -- such that any one surviving system could provide worldwide messaging. I doubt the ARRL is talking about such a configuration, much less working on it. I do believe there is a role for an RF-based email system that would complement the internet's email delivery system by supporting portable operation and by standing ready to compensate for local outages. The "boil the ocean" approach that you've been advocating can only delay the development and deployment of this far more practical application. *** I believe that with forward looking local and regional level HF messaging systems (note I didn't say E-Mail), I think if we can't ""boil the ocean", we may be able to raise it to a temperature so that the foes don't want to enter it. >>>To extend an already stretched analogy, raising the temperature a few degrees won't help; an opponent would simply increase his insulation by the same increment -- or use a cooling system. 73, Dave, AA6YQ Need a Digital mode QSO? Connect to Telnet://cluster.dynalias.org Other areas of interest: The MixW Reflector : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup/ DigiPol: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Digipol (band plan policy discussion) Yahoo! 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