Folks: We found a security vulnerability in Tahoe-LAFS (all versions from v1.3.0 to v1.8.2 inclusive) that might allow an attacker to delete files. This vulnerability does not enable anyone to read file contents without authorization (confidentiality), nor to change the contents of a file (integrity). How exploitable this vulnerability is depends upon some details of how you use Tahoe-LAFS. If you upgrade your Tahoe-LAFS storage server to v1.8.3, this fixes the vulnerability.
We've written detailed docs about the issue and how to manage it in the "Known Issues" document: http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/docs/known_issues.rst I am sorry that we introduced this bug into Tahoe-LAFS and allowed it to go undetected until now. We aim for a high standard of security and reliability in Tahoe-LAFS, and we're not satisfied until our users are safe from threats to their data. We've been working with the packagers who maintain packages of Tahoe-LAFS in various operating systems, so if you get your Tahoe-LAFS through your operating system there may already be a fixed version available: http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/wiki/OSPackages Please contact us through the tahoe-dev mailing list if you have further questions. Regards, Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn ANNOUNCING Tahoe, the Least-Authority File System, v1.8.3 The Tahoe-LAFS team announces the immediate availability of version 1.8.3 of Tahoe-LAFS, an extremely reliable distributed storage system. Get it here: http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/docs/quickstart.rst Tahoe-LAFS is the first distributed storage system to offer "provider-independent security" — meaning that not even the operators of your storage servers can read or alter your data without your consent. Here is the one-page explanation of its unique security and fault-tolerance properties: http://tahoe-lafs.org/source/tahoe/trunk/docs/about.html The previous stable release of Tahoe-LAFS was v1.8.2, which was released January 30, 2011 [1]. v1.8.3 is a stable bugfix release which fixes a security issue. See the file [2] and known_issues.rst [3] file for details. WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? With Tahoe-LAFS, you distribute your filesystem across multiple servers, and even if some of the servers fail or are taken over by an attacker, the entire filesystem continues to work correctly, and continues to preserve your privacy and security. You can easily share specific files and directories with other people. In addition to the core storage system itself, volunteers have built other projects on top of Tahoe-LAFS and have integrated Tahoe-LAFS with existing systems, including Windows, JavaScript, iPhone, Android, Hadoop, Flume, Django, Puppet, bzr, mercurial, perforce, duplicity, TiddlyWiki, and more. See the Related Projects page on the wiki [4]. We believe that strong cryptography, Free and Open Source Software, erasure coding, and principled engineering practices make Tahoe-LAFS safer than RAID, removable drive, tape, on-line backup or cloud storage. This software is developed under test-driven development, and there are no known bugs or security flaws which would compromise confidentiality or data integrity under recommended use. (For all important issues that we are currently aware of please see the known_issues.rst file [3].) COMPATIBILITY This release is compatible with the version 1 series of Tahoe-LAFS. Clients from this release can write files and directories in the format used by clients of all versions back to v1.0 (which was released March 25, 2008). Clients from this release can read files and directories produced by clients of all versions since v1.0. Servers from this release can serve clients of all versions back to v1.0 and clients from this release can use servers of all versions back to v1.0. This is the fourteenth release in the version 1 series. This series of Tahoe-LAFS will be actively supported and maintained for the forseeable future, and future versions of Tahoe-LAFS will retain the ability to read and write files compatible with this series. LICENCE You may use this package under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or, at your option, any later version. See the file "COPYING.GPL" [5] for the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2. You may use this package under the Transitive Grace Period Public Licence, version 1 or, at your option, any later version. (The Transitive Grace Period Public Licence has requirements similar to the GPL except that it allows you to delay for up to twelve months after you redistribute a derived work before releasing the source code of your derived work.) See the file "COPYING.TGPPL.html" [6] for the terms of the Transitive Grace Period Public Licence, version 1. (You may choose to use this package under the terms of either licence, at your option.) INSTALLATION Tahoe-LAFS works on Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, Cygwin, Solaris, *BSD, and probably most other systems. Start with "docs/quickstart.html" [7]. HACKING AND COMMUNITY Please join us on the mailing list [8]. Patches are gratefully accepted -- the RoadMap page [9] shows the next improvements that we plan to make and CREDITS [10] lists the names of people who've contributed to the project. The Dev page [11] contains resources for hackers. SPONSORSHIP Atlas Networks has contributed several hosted servers for performance testing. Thank you to Atlas Networks for their generous and public-spirited support. HACK TAHOE-LAFS! If you can find a security flaw in Tahoe-LAFS which is serious enough that we feel compelled to warn our users and issue a fix, then we will award you with a customized t-shirts with your exploit printed on it and add you to the "Hack Tahoe-LAFS Hall Of Fame" [12]. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This is the eighth release of Tahoe-LAFS to be created solely as a labor of love by volunteers. Thank you very much to the team of "hackers in the public interest" who make Tahoe-LAFS possible. Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn on behalf of the Tahoe-LAFS team September 13, 2011 Boulder, Colorado, USA [1] http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe/browser/relnotes.txt?rev=5164 [2] http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/1.8.3/NEWS?rev=5014 [3] http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe/browser/docs/known_issues.rst [4] http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe/wiki/RelatedProjects [5] http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe/browser/COPYING.GPL [6] http://tahoe-lafs.org/source/tahoe/trunk/COPYING.TGPPL.html [7] http://tahoe-lafs.org/source/tahoe/trunk/docs/quickstart.html [8] http://tahoe-lafs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tahoe-dev [9] http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe/roadmap [10] http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/1.8.3/CREDITS?rev=5003 [11] http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe/wiki/Dev [12] http://tahoe-lafs.org/hacktahoelafs/ _______________________________________________ p2p-hackers mailing list p2p-hackers@lists.zooko.com http://lists.zooko.com/mailman/listinfo/p2p-hackers
