Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-20 Thread MFPA
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Hash: SHA512

Hi


On Sunday 20 March 2011 at 6:31:49 PM, in
mid:4d864815.6020...@adversary.org, Ben McGinnes wrote:


 On 20/03/11 1:52 PM, MFPA wrote:
 Whether on a keyserver or on your local keyring, I see
 little difference.

 Which just shows how your use differs with that of
 others.  I have a number of keys on my keyring and when
 I list them I like to see which key belongs to which
 identity/account (I don't care if it's a real name or
 not, just as long as I can see something that makes
 sense to me).  Hashed IDs, depending on how common they
 became, would make this and key management difficult.

All fair enough but the reason I see little difference between
personal information being on other people's local keyrings or on
keyservers is covered in the next sentence, which you agreed with.



 Keys that exist on local keyrings sooner or later tend
 to end up on keyservers.

 True.

 The first two or three times I looked at PGP and
 GnuPG, I found the apparent requirement to include
 personal information in user IDs repulsive and
 therefore moved on without any further study. A
 feature such as this might have attracted me to study
 further and maybe adopt sooner.

 No offence, but I think this is more a lack of
 imagination.  I think my second key ever used a
 pseudonym with no email address or comment and it was
 made the same day as my first one.

No offence taken. When I eventually looked into it I realised the
requirement for including the email address, although strongly
suggested by most descriptions and how-to articles I found, was not
real. One of the first keys I created was the one use to I sign these
messages; the a@b.c is because whatever PGP version I was using
wouldn't create a key without an email address of
string@string.string and I was unaware of example.net at the time.



- --
Best regards

MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com

Is it bad luck to be superstitious?
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-19 Thread MFPA
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Hi


On Sunday 13 March 2011 at 4:39:49 PM, in
mid:4d7cf355.3050...@adversary.org, Ben McGinnes wrote:


 On 14/03/11 12:32 AM, MFPA wrote:
 Fair enough but I believe a person's desire to
 withhold their own personal information outranks
 another person's desire to make use of that personal
 information.

 That too is an understandable argument.  Especially
 when it comes to searching the keyservers, but less
 easy to maintain in relation to searches of a local
 keyring

Whether on a keyserver or on your local keyring, I see little
difference. Keys that exist on local keyrings sooner or later tend to
end up on keyservers.



 I would like hashing to be offered for the name and
 then again for the email address, along with a
 one-liner that obscuring the information in the UIDS
 offered minimal protection as described in gpg.man and
 made it harder for other users to locate and use the
 key; if there's a default answer it should be No.
 Maybe others would feel it should be only in expert
 mode, or perhaps enabled by a hash-uid option to the
 gen-key command.

 I'd definitely say the default should be off and
 enabling it only via expert mode would probably be
 wise.

The first two or three times I looked at PGP and GnuPG, I found the
apparent requirement to include personal information in user IDs
repulsive and therefore moved on without any further study. A feature
such as this might have attracted me to study further and maybe adopt
sooner. Burying it in expert mode, and thereby branding it as
nonsensical or silly and for experts only, would have effectively
rendered it invisible to me.



 if you have a key that only has
 hashed UIDs of your real name and email address(es),
 would you wish to prevent signatures of your key from
 contacts who did not use the hashing function?

No I would not wish to prevent them. Anyway, I'm not convinced that a
mechanism to enforce the keyserver-no-modify flag is possible. In the
absence of such a mechanism, wishing is about all you could do to
prevent such signatures.



  If the
 concern is preventing your personal information being
 revealed and someone who knows you, but is less
 concerned about this is willing to sign your key, would
 you attempt to stop them?

I would not seek to stop them, and if I did they might not listen.

A scheme such as this would allow the user, without publishing their
personal information, to publish a key that others could locate and
use. That is not the same thing as preventing their personal
information being revealed.



 After all, a relationship
 could be determined by their identity and if there were
 enough such signatures from people you know in real
 life, it may be possible to determine your identity
 that way.

Maybe inferred rather than determined. You could have gone to a
keysigning party and met a group of people who knew each other in real
life but you'd never seen any of them before. And working out who you
are in real life wouldn't necessarily reveal your email addresses or
any other identities you had in hashed user IDs. (You might have your
name unhashed and only be hashing your email addresses.)



 It seems that the only real strength the hashed UID has
 is if it is adopted by every user, regardless of
 whether they want it or not.

Why?


- --
Best regards

MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com

Look, it's a hat! It's not going to hurt you.
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-15 Thread MFPA
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Hi


On Monday 14 March 2011 at 1:06:26 AM, in
mid:4d7d6a12@adversary.org, Ben McGinnes wrote:


 Anyway, out of curiosity, did you ever receive spam by
 that address and prove it had been harvested from the
 keyservers?  I still think harvesting addresses from
 the keyservers is too much effort for spammers, who
 mostly generate the target addresses, but it would be
 nice to finally answer that question.


No mail received at all on that address so far. That key has only been
up just over a year. Up until now, if I received any mail on that
address, the address could only have been harvested from a keyserver
(or randomly matched). Going forward, if I receive any mail on that
address it was probably harvested from the mailing list archive.


- --
Best regards

MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com

Oven mitt: A partially charred grease stain that fits over the hand.
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-15 Thread Ben McGinnes
On 16/03/11 9:54 AM, MFPA wrote:
 On Monday 14 March 2011 at 1:06:26 AM, in
 mid:4d7d6a12@adversary.org, Ben McGinnes wrote:
 
 Anyway, out of curiosity, did you ever receive spam by that address
 and prove it had been harvested from the keyservers?  I still think
 harvesting addresses from the keyservers is too much effort for
 spammers, who mostly generate the target addresses, but it would be
 nice to finally answer that question.
 
 No mail received at all on that address so far. That key has only
 been up just over a year.

I think that if spammers were harvesting addresses from the keyservers
then you would have received some by now.

I don't think they bother because:

a) The effort required to harvest the addresses would be better spent
elsewhere and most, if not all, spammers are lazy.

b) It would be easier to just generate usernames at a target domain
name than to work from a large list (these days).

c) It is more likely that OpenPGP users are going to include people
who will hunt down spammers and get their upstream providers to
disconnect them.

 Up until now, if I received any mail on that address, the address
 could only have been harvested from a keyserver (or randomly
 matched). Going forward, if I receive any mail on that address it
 was probably harvested from the mailing list archive.

That would be likely.


Regards,
Ben



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-15 Thread Doug Barton

On 03/15/2011 16:15, Ben McGinnes wrote:

I think that if spammers were harvesting addresses from the keyservers
then you would have received some by now.


I do, occasionally, get spam directed to addresses that I am sure were 
harvested from they keyservers. However at the far outside of the range 
it's no more than 10/month, whereas my usual run rate for all other 
types of spam is around 100/day.



hth,

Doug

--

Nothin' ever doesn't change, but nothin' changes much.
-- OK Go

Breadth of IT experience, and depth of knowledge in the DNS.
Yours for the right price.  :)  http://SupersetSolutions.com/


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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-15 Thread Ben McGinnes
On 16/03/11 2:04 PM, Doug Barton wrote:
 
 I do, occasionally, get spam directed to addresses that I am sure
 were harvested from they keyservers.

How long ago would those addresses have been harvested from the
keyservers?

 However at the far outside of the range it's no more than 10/month,
 whereas my usual run rate for all other types of spam is around
 100/day.

That's actually not that much.  Most stuff directed at my server is
for this address and one or two others and it's usually at least
200/day.  Although that doesn't count anything stopped by the
grey-listing (which stops a *lot*).


Regards,
Ben



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-14 Thread Vlad SATtva Miller
MFPA:
 Trust is not transitive.  If A trusts B and B trusts C,
 there is no requirement that A trusts C.

 In real life, true. But what about the GnuPG default of trusting a key
 that carries certifications from 1 fully trusted or 3 marginally
 trusted keys. Unless you manually inspect each trust path, how would
 you spot unknown keys from past real-life associates you distrusted?

You're mixing concepts. Trusting someone to vouch for others' keys
validity in *not* the same as believing someone else's key is valid. I
think, what Robert meant (and feel free to correct if I'm off here) is
he wouldn't trust certifications from that ex-CEO Ben, but there's
nothing wrong really if one or several persons whom Robert trusts
certify Ben's key.

In GnuPG, you assign trust levels manually. In turn, GnuPG computes
validity automatically. Trust doesn't gets transferred from one key to
another. Validity does (in a sense).

-- 
Vlad SATtva Miller
3d viz | security  privacy consulting
www.vladmiller.info | www.pgpru.com


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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-13 Thread Ben McGinnes
On 13/03/11 6:37 AM, MFPA wrote:
 
 Whatever you do with user IDs is optional, since they are just a
 free-text field. And of course a user wanting to make their key
 match more searches could include extra UIDs with additional
 hashes. For example John Smith john.smith...@example.com could
 include hashes of example.com and of john.smith. In any event,
 including the information in hashed form should make the key more
 likely to be found than if the info were not there at all.

There's something else about this which has been nagging me, how would
you address this:

Currently a user's public keyring contains easily readable UIDs and
can be examined in any way they see fit.  If hashed UIDs were adopted
it would be possible to have hundreds of keys in the keyring which
only display hashed UIDs when listing the keyring.  Some of these may
belong to people the user corresponds with, some may have been picked
up in order to try to verify the WoT and some may have been picked up
to verify signatures on correspondence (e.g. in mailing lists).

So, my question, how would you enable a user to display those keys
with known names or identities without searching for a specific key
belonging to a particular person?

Say I ended up with a couple of hundred keys using only hashed UIDs
and I know that around 40 of them are people I correspond with, the
rest are from signatures on mailing lists or whatever.  If I wish to
split those keys off from the others into a smaller keyring, instead
of leaving everything in the default keyring, how do I determine that
without wading through large email archives to find the key IDs of
those people I have corresponded with?

Also, when I am viewing the signatures on keys and I see signatures
containing hashed UIDs of other people I do know and also have keys
for, how do I know which one is which in order to differentiate them
from the hashed UIDs of keys I may have, but don't know the identities
of?

It could be done with a local db or address book which maps previous
key searches to the hashes and keys they match, but this seems to be
an additional level of complexity just to achieve a current feature
and could also be used to circumvent the entire idea if performed on a
large enough scale.


Regards,
Ben



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-13 Thread Ben McGinnes
On 13/03/11 5:32 PM, John Clizbe wrote:
 Ben McGinnes wrote:

 Thanks.  I think I might have to play around with installing a local
 server.  I don't have a big enough link to run a public server, but
 running a local one would probably serve as an interesting exercise.
 
 I think that's my problem with sks.keyservers.net, getting too many
 timeouts.  Have to beat on ATT *again*

Even though my poor little ADSL connection is fairly small, at least I
do have a very competent and responsive ISP.

 Is the source on the sks-servers.net site or should I be looking
 elsewhere?
 
 Originally @ https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/sks/
 
 Currently at Googleâ„¢ Code: http://code.google.com/p/sks-keyserver/

Thanks.

 my branch: hg clone https://johnclizbe-sks-keyserver.googlecode.com/hg/
 johnclizbe-sks-keyserver

What does your branch have that the main one doesn't?

 You need Berkeley DB = 4.6 and ocaml = 3.11.0

Cool.

 I've built on Linux, Mac OS (MacPorts), and Solaris (Blastwave)

I'd be building on Linux and there will be plenty of examples of that
floating around.


Regards,
Ben



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-13 Thread MFPA
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Hash: SHA512

Hi


On Saturday 12 March 2011 at 11:06:14 PM, in
mid:4d7bfc66.3040...@sixdemonbag.org, Robert J. Hansen wrote:


 If nobody's looking for people's email addresses, then
 there's no need to not publish email addresses.

That assumes that there is no need to obscure a piece of information
unless it is known that somebody is actively looking for the
information. In my world you obscure certain information simply
because it is nobody else's business. Just like you move stuff to the
drawer or filing cupboard because there is an offchance that somebody
walking through the office might read it if left on the desk, not
because you think they are specifically looking for it.



 And if
 there's a need to not publish email addresses, that's
 because somebody's looking for them.

That suggests that all information should be published unless it can
be demonstrated there is a compelling reason to not publish. Whilst
this is true for some categories of information, it is not universally
true for all information. Much information relating to corporations or
individuals would not be published unless there were a compelling
reason to publish.

My email addresses are personal contact information relating to me as
an individual. I know of no reason to publish any of my email
addresses to anybody other than those with whom I use that email
address to communicate; they are quite simply nobody else's business.
In the absence of a reason to publish, there is no requirement for a
reason to not publish.



 It is not good enough right now to prevent an even
 moderately skilled attacker from recovering email
 addresses.

Just like a moderately skilled attacker could look in the desk drawer
or filing cabinet, or could open the envelope that obscures a bank
statement or telephone bill. Those schemes are good enough for the
minimal level of protection they seek to provide.



 This scheme offers the illusion of security instead of
 actual security:

It offers no such thing. In order to be an illusion it would need to
be fooling somebody. The scheme was never claimed to offer security
against any form of attack more severe than casual snooping, and never
could because anybody could add signatures to the key that stated the
unhashed version of any of the hashed strings.

The scenario of a spammer brute-forcing and then spamming was
interesting, if a little esoteric. Usually, spamming subsides after a
few weeks and (aside from a certain amount of irritation and wasted
time) is of little consequence. If the spammer published a list
enumerating the email accounts that went with the particular key ID
then it might be a significant attack against this scheme. Even then,
it would have little relevance unless the list (or maybe a link to it)
were in a signature appended to the key.



 and I feel selling people an illusion
 is a deeply corrupt act.

Insurance companies, amongst others, earn billions by doing just that.
But this scheme is no illusion; I am aware of no pretence that it
offers anything it does not.



 I mean, really, is that what you want to sell?  Or
 should this be taken as a, the idea of blinded UIDs is
 a good one, but this idea is inadequate and should be
 taken back to the drawing board?

It depends on the reason for wishing to use blinded UIDs. You have
demonstrated limitations to this idea; I still believe it to be
adequate for my purposes. More thought is needed, followed by further
discussion at some point.


- --
Best regards

MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com

Wise men learn many things from their enemies.
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-13 Thread MFPA
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

Hi


On Sunday 13 March 2011 at 5:48:55 AM, in
mid:4d7c5ac7.70...@adversary.org, Ben McGinnes wrote:


 I think you're assuming a level of innate understanding
 of what can be done with every part of a UID by every
 user when they create a key. This is most definitely
 not the case.

I'm assuming a short descriptive paragraph in the gpg.man file plus
some good info becoming available over time in various start up
guides etc. by searching the web or mailing list archives or asking
on mailing lists, as with other GnuPG features. It doesn't matter if
people learn after the key is created because additional UIDs
containing extra hashes can be added later.



 As much as I find your idea interesting, I think I'd
 rather have the ability to search on sections of a UID.

Fair enough but I believe a person's desire to withhold their own
personal information outranks another person's desire to make use of
that personal information.



 If your hashed UID were an optional feature that were
 not enabled by default, I doubt I would object,

I would like hashing to be offered for the name and then again for the
email address, along with a one-liner that obscuring the information
in the UIDS offered minimal protection as described in gpg.man and
made it harder for other users to locate and use the key; if there's a
default answer it should be No. Maybe others would feel it should be
only in expert mode, or perhaps enabled by a hash-uid option to the
gen-key command.

 but I
 think the current use of UIDs has value that I would
 not want to see superceded by the hashed version.

The main disadvantage I see in hashing the information is slightly
increased complexity in locating keys. That assumes the individual
would otherwise have a key containing his information unhashed. For
individuals whose UIDs would otherwise contain spurious or no
information, locating their key should become easier.

The search/research capability that you outlined would be reduced if
significant numbers of keys with only hashed UIDs came about, if
the organisations you are searching allow their people to use such
UIDs.

The impact on the WoT is unclear. One scenario is no change from the
current situation, where an individual who chooses not to reveal their
name and email address(es) in their UID has little chance of success
in finding people willing to provide certifications.

- --
Best regards

MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com

Yellow snow is not lemon flavoured
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-13 Thread MFPA
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Hash: SHA512

Hi


On Sunday 13 March 2011 at 7:58:36 AM, in
mid:4d7c792c.2000...@adversary.org, Ben McGinnes wrote:


 So, my question, how would you enable a user to display
 those keys with known names or identities without
 searching for a specific key belonging to a particular
 person?

My understanding is that the new keybox format for storing keys will
allow storing of metadata such as when the key was last
refreshed/updated/matched a search, usage statistics, and local notes
which might include the known names and/or email addresses.



 It could be done with a local db or address book which
 maps previous key searches to the hashes and keys they
 match, but this seems to be an additional level of
 complexity just to achieve a current feature

Don't forget the additional feature of being able to publish a key
that, by direct examination, will not reveal your name(s) and/or email
address(es) but can still be located by a user who already has that
information about you.

There is a balance to be achieved. A user taking advantage of the new
feature have to accept the key would be less efficiently searched and
located than one which announced all their details in flashing lights;
a user encountering that key can at least locate it from the name or
email address, unlike if the key owner had used spurious or no
information in the UIDs.



  and could
 also be used to circumvent the entire idea if performed
 on a large enough scale.

Yes, different people you communicate with using different names/email
addresses could share information. If this were uploaded to a database
that became widely used instead of keyservers it would circumvent the
whole idea...


- --
Best regards

MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com

My mind works like lightning... one brilliant flash and it's gone
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-13 Thread Robert J. Hansen
On 3/13/2011 8:37 AM, MFPA wrote:
 If nobody's looking for people's email addresses, then
 there's no need to not publish email addresses.
 
 That assumes that there is no need to obscure a piece of information
 unless it is known that somebody is actively looking for the
 information. In my world...

So at this point you're saying, I want to convince somebody else to
volunteer their time and energy implementing a bogus solution to a
problem that doesn't even exist.

I'm done with this thread.

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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-13 Thread Ben McGinnes
On 14/03/11 12:32 AM, MFPA wrote:
 On Sunday 13 March 2011 at 5:48:55 AM, in
 mid:4d7c5ac7.70...@adversary.org, Ben McGinnes wrote:
 
 I'm assuming a short descriptive paragraph in the gpg.man file plus
 some good info becoming available over time in various start up
 guides etc. by searching the web or mailing list archives or asking
 on mailing lists, as with other GnuPG features. It doesn't matter if
 people learn after the key is created because additional UIDs
 containing extra hashes can be added later.

Don't depend on the mailing lists, we're a very small subset of GPG
users.  All relevant documentation will need to be included for those
users where connectivity to the Internet is sporadic at best.

 As much as I find your idea interesting, I think I'd rather have
 the ability to search on sections of a UID.
 
 Fair enough but I believe a person's desire to withhold their own
 personal information outranks another person's desire to make use of
 that personal information.

That too is an understandable argument.  Especially when it comes to
searching the keyservers, but less easy to maintain in relation to
searches of a local keyring (as I discussed in my other message).

 If your hashed UID were an optional feature that were not enabled
 by default, I doubt I would object,
 
 I would like hashing to be offered for the name and then again for
 the email address, along with a one-liner that obscuring the
 information in the UIDS offered minimal protection as described in
 gpg.man and made it harder for other users to locate and use the
 key; if there's a default answer it should be No. Maybe others
 would feel it should be only in expert mode, or perhaps enabled by a
 hash-uid option to the gen-key command.

I'd definitely say the default should be off and enabling it only via
expert mode would probably be wise.

 The main disadvantage I see in hashing the information is slightly
 increased complexity in locating keys. That assumes the individual
 would otherwise have a key containing his information unhashed. For
 individuals whose UIDs would otherwise contain spurious or no
 information, locating their key should become easier.

That appears to be the case.  Certainly for individuals like yourself
I can see the appeal.

 The search/research capability that you outlined would be reduced if
 significant numbers of keys with only hashed UIDs came about,

Yes.  Although to be honest, even if this feature were added, I don't
see it becoming very popular.

 if the organisations you are searching allow their people to use
 such UIDs.

That would require an OpenPGP policy being adopted which is not
exactly common with most organisations.

 The impact on the WoT is unclear. One scenario is no change from the
 current situation, where an individual who chooses not to reveal
 their name and email address(es) in their UID has little chance of
 success in finding people willing to provide certifications.

I doubt there would be much change, although it does raise another
question: if you have a key that only has hashed UIDs of your real
name and email address(es), would you wish to prevent signatures of
your key from contacts who did not use the hashing function?  If the
concern is preventing your personal information being revealed and
someone who knows you, but is less concerned about this is willing to
sign your key, would you attempt to stop them?  After all, a
relationship could be determined by their identity and if there were
enough such signatures from people you know in real life, it may be
possible to determine your identity that way.

It seems that the only real strength the hashed UID has is if it is
adopted by every user, regardless of whether they want it or not.

Anyway, the more we discuss this, the less likely it appears that it
will be added to either GnuPG or any of the commercial PGP products,
let alone the RFCs.

Still, the advantage of GnuPG is that it is released under the GPL
(version 3, last time I checked), so there's nothing stopping you from
creating your own fork to add the feature.  If it became popular
through practical example then the chances of the feature being
incorporated in the main release would be vastly increased.


Regards,
Ben



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-13 Thread MFPA
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

Hi


On Sunday 13 March 2011 at 2:47:23 PM, in
mid:4d7cd8fb.7090...@sixdemonbag.org, Robert J. Hansen wrote:


 On 3/13/2011 8:37 AM, MFPA wrote:
 of information unless it is known that somebody is
 actively looking for the information. In my world...

 So at this point you're saying, I want to convince
 somebody else to volunteer their time and energy
 implementing a bogus solution to a problem that doesn't
 even exist.

I am saying no such thing in that short snippet nor in the rest of my
posting.



- --
Best regards

MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com

Roses smell better than onions but don't make such good soup
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-13 Thread Ben McGinnes
On 14/03/11 1:12 AM, MFPA wrote:
 On Sunday 13 March 2011 at 7:58:36 AM, in
 mid:4d7c792c.2000...@adversary.org, Ben McGinnes wrote:
 
 So, my question, how would you enable a user to display those keys
 with known names or identities without searching for a specific key
 belonging to a particular person?
 
 My understanding is that the new keybox format for storing keys will
 allow storing of metadata such as when the key was last
 refreshed/updated/matched a search, usage statistics, and local
 notes which might include the known names and/or email addresses.

Ah, I'm still using the 1.4.x branch, so I haven't seen any of that.
Maybe when 2.1 actually reaches the next stable release (2.2) I'll
have to have another look.

 There is a balance to be achieved. A user taking advantage of the
 new feature have to accept the key would be less efficiently
 searched and located than one which announced all their details in
 flashing lights;

I'd hardly call it flashing lights just to be listed on the
keyserver, especially when the same data source also contains a large
amount of effectively useless data in which any key on the servers is
buried amongst.

Speaking of which, I presume key ID 0x992F6351 is one of your tests?
If so, you probably should've used example.net as the domain name.
It's possible that the registrant of dfgh.net in Turkey might object
to this reference to his domain.

 Yes, different people you communicate with using different names/email
 addresses could share information. If this were uploaded to a database
 that became widely used instead of keyservers it would circumvent the
 whole idea...

As, indeed, would traffic analysis.


Regards,
Ben



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-13 Thread MFPA
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

Hi


On Sunday 13 March 2011 at 5:02:52 PM, in
mid:4d7cf8bc.3060...@adversary.org, Ben McGinnes wrote:

 Ah, I'm still using the 1.4.x branch, so I haven't seen
 any of that.

Nor have I; it is just my understanding from descriptions and answers
to questions that I have read.



 I'd hardly call it flashing lights just to be listed
 on the keyserver, especially when the same data source
 also contains a large amount of effectively useless
 data in which any key on the servers is buried amongst.

Ok, you know what I mean. When you have found the key, all user IDs
are readable and the information is clearly visible. Compared to a key
showing only hashes in the user IDs, this is like having the
information up in lights for all to see. (-:



 Speaking of which, I presume key ID 0x992F6351 is one
 of your tests?

Without looking at it I couldn't comment; I have a handful out there.
(-;



 If so, you probably should've used
 example.net as the domain name.

Depends. What was being tested may have required a working email
address.



 It's possible that the
 registrant of dfgh.net in Turkey might object to this
 reference to his domain.

Last I heard, dfgh.net was one of the domains whose owner allows its
use as an alternative to spamgourmet.com. If it has changed hands, the
new owner could be in for a shock...



 Yes, different people you communicate with using
 different names/email addresses could share
 information. If this were uploaded to a database that
 became widely used instead of keyservers it would
 circumvent the whole idea...

 As, indeed, would traffic analysis.

And neither of these are within the scope of the limited protection
intended by this scheme.


- --
Best regards

MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com

Wisdom is a companion to age; yet age may travel alone.
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-13 Thread Ben McGinnes
On 14/03/11 11:44 AM, MFPA wrote:
 On Sunday 13 March 2011 at 5:02:52 PM, in
 mid:4d7cf8bc.3060...@adversary.org, Ben McGinnes wrote:
 
 I'd hardly call it flashing lights just to be listed on the
 keyserver, especially when the same data source also contains a
 large amount of effectively useless data in which any key on the
 servers is buried amongst.
 
 Ok, you know what I mean. When you have found the key, all user IDs
 are readable and the information is clearly visible. Compared to a
 key showing only hashes in the user IDs, this is like having the
 information up in lights for all to see. (-:

I can't speak for everyone else, but I've always taken the term of
saying something is in flashing lights to mean that something is
drawing attention to that thing.  The existence of a UID being in a
human readable format on a keyserver doesn't really fit that category.

 Speaking of which, I presume key ID 0x992F6351 is one of your
 tests?
 
 Without looking at it I couldn't comment; I have a handful out there.
 (-;

Well, the name kind of gives it away:

N.O. Hashing eb089be1992f6351_uploaded_20100303.m...@dfgh.net
  2048 bit RSA key 992F6351, created: 2010-03-03

 Last I heard, dfgh.net was one of the domains whose owner allows its
 use as an alternative to spamgourmet.com. If it has changed hands, the
 new owner could be in for a shock...

The whois data says it's been registered for a few years, so it
probably hasn't changed hands.

Anyway, out of curiosity, did you ever receive spam by that address
and prove it had been harvested from the keyservers?  I still think
harvesting addresses from the keyservers is too much effort for
spammers, who mostly generate the target addresses, but it would be
nice to finally answer that question.


Regards,
Ben





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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-12 Thread MFPA
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

Hi


On Thursday 10 March 2011 at 1:18:36 PM, in
mid:4d78cfac.2020...@sixdemonbag.org, Robert J. Hansen wrote:


 Remember that a jury trial is often not so much about
 the law as it is about blame: if something bad happens
 the jury wants to be able to point at someone and say,
 that person is responsible.

Determining whether it has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that
the defendant is guilty as charged has nothing to do with the
apportionment of blame.

- --
Best regards

MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com

The best way to destroy your enemy is to make him your friend.
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-12 Thread MFPA
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

Hi


On Friday 11 March 2011 at 1:54:57 PM, in
mid:4d7a29b1.4010...@sixdemonbag.org, Robert J. Hansen wrote:


 It is useful to quite a lot of people.  Look at how
 many people map out webs of trust for entirely innocent
 purposes.  In fact, mapping out webs of trust is
 necessary for the WoT idea to even work.  Well, I've
 signed Frank's key and I see that Frank's signed
 Gianna's key, and I trust Frank so...

The WoT can be mapped with or without names. In your example, how is
your trust enhanced by knowing Gianna's name? I signed Frank's key
and I see that Frank's signed a key that has user ID
'7b7581fe6670a6a4a29b2fd46eaf5ac34a6a86d134fe8931729e66970b707349
466ffe71badce782db1808ee80bd01dabf0d95e4a3b8ccbbe5fcdc68b86c2bb9',
and I trust Frank so...

How does the WoT idea require me to know the names or email addresses
associated with the keys in the trust path? The text strings in User
IDs do not feature in the trust calculation.



 It's perfectly OK for me that you can see that I have
 signed Ben's key but why should others know that?

 Because this is not an ORCON system.  The system is
 built around public certifications and private
 certifications.  You're talking about introducing an
 entirely new method, something which seems basically
 like an ORCON certification: I'll make the
 certification, but I get to control who gets to learn
 about the certification.

That one sentence quoted in isolation from Hauke could be construed in
that way. But take into account the context and it becomes clear that
he was saying no such thing. A certification made by a key that had
hashed user IDs would be just as visible as any other certification.
What would not be visible (at least to people who didn't already know
it) is the identity and email address of the certifying key's owner.


- --
Best regards

MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com

A nod is as good as a wink to a blind bat!
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-12 Thread MFPA
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

Hi


On Thursday 10 March 2011 at 1:34:13 PM, in
mid:4d78d355.3000...@sixdemonbag.org, Robert J. Hansen wrote:

 A public certification is intended as an
 announcement to the world: Hey, world!  I am [name]
 and I vouch for this certificate!

Which most people will hear as Hey, world! I am somebody you don't
know and I vouch for this certificate!



 If people want to make public pronouncements of social
 relationship, why in the world would you want to deploy
 a technology that makes it difficult to discover this
 social relationship?

I don't think anything has been suggested here that would make it
difficult to discover the social relationship. Just a means to make
the public pronouncement without publicly stating your identity. And
to do so in such a way that people who already know your identity can
tell it is you that made the pronouncement.


- --
Best regards

MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com

Only dead fish go with the flow
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-12 Thread MFPA
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

Hi


On Wednesday 9 March 2011 at 1:46:53 PM, in
mid:201103091446.53974.mailinglis...@hauke-laging.de, Hauke Laging
wrote:


If you want to validate a key by its signatures
 and see a signature of an unknown key then there is
 (IMHO) no reason why you should know who has certified
 this key. This information can easily be abused.

Information that has no use to you in the task in hand is just
noise. If it is information about me for which you have no
legitimate use, I would rather it were not at your disposal in case of
possible nefarious use.


- --
Best regards

MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com

Keep them dry and don't feed them after midnight
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-12 Thread MFPA
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

Hi


On Thursday 10 March 2011 at 2:58:32 AM, in
mid:4d783e58.5090...@adversary.org, Ben McGinnes wrote:


 I have.  Many, many times.  There's no point doing it
 for a free email service provider's domain (e.g.
 gmail.com), but sometimes there are advantages in
 checking for keys belonging to people at particular
 organisations (e.g. government departments).  This is
 one of the reasons why I'd prefer MFPA's suggestion,
 were it ever implemented, to be optional rather than
 the default.

Whatever you do with user IDs is optional, since they are just a
free-text field. And of course a user wanting to make their key match
more searches could include extra UIDs with additional hashes. For
example John Smith john.smith...@example.com could include hashes of
example.com and of john.smith. In any event, including the information
in hashed form should make the key more likely to be found than if the
info were not there at all.



 If that feature weren't available, I doubt I would've
 found this:

 pub   1024D/B3F77236 2000-09-21 uid
 Stephen Smith stephen.smith...@aph.gov.au sub
 2048g/0E0EEE5F 2000-09-21

 Stephen Smith was in Opposition when he made that key,
 but now he's Minister of Defence.

If there was a point there other than curiosity value, it went way
over my head.  (-:



- --
Best regards

MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com

COMMITTEE: A body that keeps minutes and wastes hours.
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-12 Thread MFPA
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

Hi


On Wednesday 9 March 2011 at 1:39:35 PM, in
mid:4d778317.3020...@sixdemonbag.org, Robert J. Hansen wrote:


 3.  Deploying this scheme means:

 (a) people can no longer do fuzzy searches for
 email addresses (show me all user IDs that
 look like this pattern)
 (b) finding
 people's certificates may be made more
 difficult due to (a)

Certificates with only hashed user IDs would be harder to find than
those that contain the actual name and email address. But easier to
find than those that show spurious information or contain no email
address or name at all.



 4.  My suspicion is the number of users covered by (2)
 is pretty small.  My suspicion is the number of users
 impacted by (3) is pretty large. My suspicion is we do
 not have a very good handle on just how difficult we
 need to make things, given the resources available to
 spammers in (1a).

After generating the list of possible email addresses, why would a
spammer generate the hashes and search for keys instead of simply
blasting out messages to the whole lot?

- --
Best regards

MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com

Wisdom is a companion to age; yet age may travel alone.
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-12 Thread Robert J. Hansen
On 3/12/2011 11:55 AM, MFPA wrote:
 Determining whether it has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that
 the defendant is guilty as charged has nothing to do with the
 apportionment of blame.

Product liability is civil, not criminal.  Regardless, it doesn't
matter: for all that judges tell juries your job is to determine the
truth of the accusation, a jury's natural instinct is going to be to
find a responsible party.

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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-12 Thread Robert J. Hansen
On 3/12/2011 1:05 PM, MFPA wrote:
 How does the WoT idea require me to know the names or email addresses
 associated with the keys in the trust path? The text strings in User
 IDs do not feature in the trust calculation.

Yes, in fact, they do.

In my past, there's an ex-CEO whom I'll just call Ben.  Ben made some
really astonishingly bad decisions that put him in prison for eighteen
months, and left me with a permanent distrust for him.  If I see Frank
has signed Ben's certificate, and I trust Frank, am I going to trust Ben?

Of course not.

Trust is not transitive.  If A trusts B and B trusts C, there is no
requirement that A trusts C.  In fact, if it turns out A knows C,
transitivity can break completely.

 What would not be visible (at least to people who didn't already know
 it) is the identity and email address of the certifying key's owner.

So far, you haven't produced a mechanism that will do this.  We're still
at the it would be nice if... stage of your idea.  Thus, I really
can't respond to statements of what this mechanism would or wouldn't do,
since we don't have a mechanism to analyze.

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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-12 Thread Robert J. Hansen
On 3/12/2011 3:10 PM, MFPA wrote:
 After generating the list of possible email addresses, why would a
 spammer generate the hashes and search for keys instead of simply
 blasting out messages to the whole lot?

Beats me.  You're the one who's assuming someone wants to harvest email
addresses.  Imagining a spammer behind it is just part of a thought
exercise.  Focus on the real issue -- that this scheme you're proposing
is not secure against an even mildly motivated attacker -- not who the
prospective attacker is.

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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-12 Thread MFPA
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

Hi


On Saturday 12 March 2011 at 8:14:34 PM, in
mid:4d7bd42a.1020...@sixdemonbag.org, Robert J. Hansen wrote:


 Product liability is civil, not criminal.

OK, balance of probabilities rather than beyond reasonable doubt.



 Regardless,
 it doesn't matter: for all that judges tell juries
 your job is to determine the truth of the accusation,
 a jury's natural instinct is going to be to find a
 responsible party.

Fair enough, you know more about this than I do. I would expect their
natural instinct to be doing the job they were charged with, as
quickly as possible so that they could get back to their own lives.


- --
Best regards

MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com

There is no job so simple that it cannot be done wrong
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-12 Thread MFPA
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

Hi


On Saturday 12 March 2011 at 8:22:06 PM, in
mid:4d7bd5ee.80...@sixdemonbag.org, Robert J. Hansen wrote:


 On 3/12/2011 1:05 PM, MFPA wrote:
 How does the WoT idea require me to know the names or email addresses
 associated with the keys in the trust path? The text strings in User
 IDs do not feature in the trust calculation.

 Yes, in fact, they do.

 In my past, there's an ex-CEO whom I'll just call
 Ben.  Ben made some really astonishingly bad
 decisions that put him in prison for eighteen months,
 and left me with a permanent distrust for him.  If I
 see Frank has signed Ben's certificate, and I trust
 Frank, am I going to trust Ben?

 Of course not.

Presumably GnuPG factors this into the trust calculations by virtue of
the trust level you have assigned to Ben's key, not by parsing his
User IDs.



 Trust is not transitive.  If A trusts B and B trusts C,
 there is no requirement that A trusts C.

In real life, true. But what about the GnuPG default of trusting a key
that carries certifications from 1 fully trusted or 3 marginally
trusted keys. Unless you manually inspect each trust path, how would
you spot unknown keys from past real-life associates you distrusted?



 In fact, if
 it turns out A knows C, transitivity can break
 completely.

Indeed, if you know that a certificate belongs to somebody you
actually know, trust *calculations* are irrelevant. Of course you
might trust somebody's security procedures and keysigning policy but
wish to keep your valuables or your wife well away from him.



- --
Best regards

MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com

A picture is a poem without words
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-12 Thread MFPA
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

Hi


On Saturday 12 March 2011 at 8:24:34 PM, in
mid:4d7bd682.2020...@sixdemonbag.org, Robert J. Hansen wrote:


 On 3/12/2011 3:10 PM, MFPA wrote:
 After generating the list of possible email addresses, why would a
 spammer generate the hashes and search for keys instead of simply
 blasting out messages to the whole lot?

 Beats me.  You're the one who's assuming someone wants
 to harvest email addresses.

A desire to not publish my email addresses (but still have somebody
who knows any of my addresses find my key on a server) does not equate
to an assumption that somebody wants to harvest email addresses from
servers. If such an assumption was stated it wasn't by me. (-:



 Imagining a spammer behind
 it is just part of a thought exercise.

Fair enough. It just seemed difficult to imagine what would be the
return on their effort.



 Focus on the
 real issue -- that this scheme you're proposing is not
 secure against an even mildly motivated attacker -- not
 who the prospective attacker is.

Fair enough, I underestimated quite how easy a brute force attack
could be. Longer email addresses at less-obvious domain names makes it
just that little bit harder but that is not really the point, IMHO.
Since anybody can add a certification to the key saying whatever they
choose, somebody else could make public one or more of the hashed
email addresses or identities. No major problem, just add a new one.

Is not about providing complete confidentiality, anonymity or
security. Instead of leaving a document open on the desk, this scheme
is more akin to putting it in the drawer or cupboard than it is to
putting it in the safe. Not secure but good enough in many
circumstances.

- --
Best regards

MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com

You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-12 Thread Robert J. Hansen
On 3/12/2011 5:25 PM, MFPA wrote:
 A desire to not publish my email addresses (but still have somebody
 who knows any of my addresses find my key on a server) does not equate
 to an assumption that somebody wants to harvest email addresses from
 servers.

Yes, it does.

If nobody's looking for people's email addresses, then there's no need
to not publish email addresses.  And if there's a need to not publish
email addresses, that's because somebody's looking for them.

 Is not about providing complete confidentiality, anonymity or
 security. Instead of leaving a document open on the desk, this scheme
 is more akin to putting it in the drawer or cupboard than it is to
 putting it in the safe. Not secure but good enough in many
 circumstances.

It is not good enough right now to prevent an even moderately skilled
attacker from recovering email addresses.  A work factor of 10 billion
means I write a Perl script, let my iMac work for a week, and fill up a
$100 hard drive.

This scheme offers the illusion of security instead of actual security:
and I feel selling people an illusion is a deeply corrupt act.

If we use this blinding scheme it will look like it works but in
reality anyone who wants to map out the Web of Trust will probably just
be delayed for a week and the majority of users will think they're secure.

I mean, really, is that what you want to sell?  Or should this be taken
as a, the idea of blinded UIDs is a good one, but this idea is
inadequate and should be taken back to the drawing board?

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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-12 Thread Doug Barton

On 03/12/2011 15:06, Robert J. Hansen wrote:

This scheme offers the illusion of security instead of actual security:
and I feel selling people an illusion is a deeply corrupt act.


+1

I'm hoping that this discussion is going to draw to a close soon, having 
already lived through it and drawn roughly the same conclusions on PGPNET.



Doug

--

Nothin' ever doesn't change, but nothin' changes much.
-- OK Go

Breadth of IT experience, and depth of knowledge in the DNS.
Yours for the right price.  :)  http://SupersetSolutions.com/


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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-12 Thread Hauke Laging
Am Freitag 11 März 2011 14:54:57 schrieb Robert J. Hansen:
 On 3/10/2011 3:09 PM, Hauke Laging wrote:
  That's the technical situation today. But it is no use to announce
  that to the whole world.
 
 (Did you mean not necessary instead of no use?)

I meant not useful.


 It is useful to quite a lot of people.  Look at how many people map out
 webs of trust for entirely innocent purposes.

As MFPA mentioned: This would not prevent mapping. It would (if noone fails) 
help limiting the access to the identities in the map to those who are 
supposed to be able to do that by the decision of the respective identity 
owner.


 How do you propose determining who really needs those signatures for
 validation purposes and who doesn't?  And once you've made that
 determination, how do you enforce it?

The access to signatures is not limited. Everyone decides himself which ones 
he needs. But the owner of the identity decides whom it is revealed to.


 I'll make the certification, but I get to
 control who gets to learn about the certification.

No. You just control who can make the next step: Mapping keys to UIDs.


Hauke
-- 
PGP: D44C 6A5B 71B0 427C CED3 025C BD7D 6D27 ECCB 5814


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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-12 Thread Robert J. Hansen
On 3/12/2011 7:41 PM, Hauke Laging wrote:
 No. You just control who can make the next step: Mapping keys to UIDs.

Yes.  Like I said, you want an ORCON system.  If you control how people
can use data, then you've entered ORCON.

As soon as you invent an ORCON system, I would love to revisit this
conversation.  I am not being in the slightest bit facetious: I think
ORCON systems are difficult theoretical and practical challenges and I'd
love to see a successful system fielded.

It's just that, as currently drafted, this isn't it.

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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-12 Thread Ben McGinnes
On 13/03/11 6:37 AM, MFPA wrote:
 
 Whatever you do with user IDs is optional, since they are just a
 free-text field. And of course a user wanting to make their key
 match more searches could include extra UIDs with additional
 hashes. For example John Smith john.smith...@example.com could
 include hashes of example.com and of john.smith. In any event,
 including the information in hashed form should make the key more
 likely to be found than if the info were not there at all.

I think you're assuming a level of innate understanding of what can be
done with every part of a UID by every user when they create a key.
This is most definitely not the case.

 If there was a point there other than curiosity value, it went way
 over my head.  (-:

That was an example.  The point was being able to determine, to some
extent, the degree of OpenPGP use in Australian politics and the civil
service.  In the case of that minister, I knew the rest of his party
used it because I know they were using a corporate version of PGP in
2000 or 2001.  The two major parties over here have always had some
interesting interactions online (ever since a scandal involving a
staffer of one providing information to hack the website of the
other in 1998).

Currently I can run gpg --search-keys aph.gov.au and get the keys
for everyone who has one in Parliament House (most of them are civil
servants, only two or three are politicians).  With hashed UIDs,
unless the person generating the hash specifies additional hashes to
be included then that will cease to work.

As much as I find your idea interesting, I think I'd rather have the
ability to search on sections of a UID.  If I ever want to be
contacted in a way that is separate from my name, then I'll just go to
the effort of creating a new key with a pseudonym and relevant mail
drop.

If your hashed UID were an optional feature that were not enabled by
default, I doubt I would object, but I think the current use of UIDs
has value that I would not want to see superceded by the hashed
version.


Regards,
Ben



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-12 Thread Ben McGinnes
On 12/03/11 6:26 PM, John Clizbe wrote:
 
 That's the SKS implementation of the key database. On top of the
 keys, there are several other tables. Within each table there is
 also empty space, most commonly space left at the end of a page.
 
 The present size of just the raw keys -- like you would pull in a
 keydump to bootstrap a server -- is 4.38 GB

Thanks.  I think I might have to play around with installing a local
server.  I don't have a big enough link to run a public server, but
running a local one would probably serve as an interesting exercise.

Is the source on the sks-servers.net site or should I be looking
elsewhere?


Regards,
Ben



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-12 Thread John Clizbe
Ben McGinnes wrote:
 On 12/03/11 6:26 PM, John Clizbe wrote:
 
 That's the SKS implementation of the key database. On top of the
 keys, there are several other tables. Within each table there is
 also empty space, most commonly space left at the end of a page.
 
 The present size of just the raw keys -- like you would pull in a
 keydump to bootstrap a server -- is 4.38 GB
 
 Thanks.  I think I might have to play around with installing a local
 server.  I don't have a big enough link to run a public server, but
 running a local one would probably serve as an interesting exercise.

I think that's my problem with sks.keyservers.net, getting too many timeouts.
Have to beat on ATT *again*
 
 Is the source on the sks-servers.net site or should I be looking
 elsewhere?

Originally @ https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/sks/

Currently at Google­™ Code: http://code.google.com/p/sks-keyserver/

Current release:
http://code.google.com/p/sks-keyserver/downloads/detail?name=sks-1.1.1.tgzcan=2q=

trunk: hg clone https://sks-keyserver.googlecode.com/hg/ sks-keyserver

my branch: hg clone https://johnclizbe-sks-keyserver.googlecode.com/hg/
johnclizbe-sks-keyserver

You need Berkeley DB = 4.6 and ocaml = 3.11.0
I've built on Linux, Mac OS (MacPorts), and Solaris (Blastwave)

-- 
John P. Clizbe  Inet:   John (a) Enigmail DAWT net
FSF Assoc #995 / FSFE Fellow #1797  hkp://keyserver.gingerbear.net  or
 mailto:pgp-public-k...@gingerbear.net?subject=HELP

Q:Just how do the residents of Haiku, Hawai'i hold conversations?
A:An odd melody / island voices on the winds / surplus of vowels



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-12 Thread Ben McGinnes
On 13/03/11 7:22 AM, Robert J. Hansen wrote:
 On 3/12/2011 1:05 PM, MFPA wrote:
 How does the WoT idea require me to know the names or email addresses
 associated with the keys in the trust path? The text strings in User
 IDs do not feature in the trust calculation.
 
 Yes, in fact, they do.
 
 In my past, there's an ex-CEO whom I'll just call Ben. 

I wish you hadn't.  ;)

 Ben made some really astonishingly bad decisions that put him in
 prison for eighteen months, and left me with a permanent distrust
 for him.  If I see Frank has signed Ben's certificate, and I trust
 Frank, am I going to trust Ben?
 
 Of course not.

I wouldn't trust him either.


Regards,
Ben






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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-11 Thread Robert J. Hansen
On 3/11/2011 1:07 AM, Ben McGinnes wrote:
 Out of curiosity, how big is that now?

My complete /var/lib/sks/DB directory comes in at 7.8G.  Not too large.


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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-11 Thread Robert J. Hansen
On 3/10/2011 3:09 PM, Hauke Laging wrote:
 That's the technical situation today. But it is no use to announce
 that to the whole world.

(Did you mean not necessary instead of no use?)

It is useful to quite a lot of people.  Look at how many people map out
webs of trust for entirely innocent purposes.  In fact, mapping out webs
of trust is necessary for the WoT idea to even work.  Well, I've signed
Frank's key and I see that Frank's signed Gianna's key, and I trust
Frank so...

 It is required only for those people who use your signature in a 
 validation chain.

How do you propose determining who really needs those signatures for
validation purposes and who doesn't?  And once you've made that
determination, how do you enforce it?

Those are the two major, outstanding questions, and so far I've not seen
any serious attempts at answering them.  It seems this discussion is
stuck at the stage of it would be nice if we all had ponies, without
any real answers to questions of so where will we get the real estate
to house the ponies? and who among us is an equine veterinarian?

 b) nobody who really wants to inform the whole world is in any way
 affected in doing that.

I don't know how to respond to this: since we don't have a workable
proposal for how to accomplish your objectives, we also can't discuss
how your proposal will affect existing users.

 It's perfectly OK for me that you can see that I have signed Ben's
 key but why should others know that?

Because this is not an ORCON system.  The system is built around public
certifications and private certifications.  You're talking about
introducing an entirely new method, something which seems basically like
an ORCON certification: I'll make the certification, but I get to
control who gets to learn about the certification.

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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-11 Thread Ben McGinnes
On 12/03/11 12:33 AM, Robert J. Hansen wrote:
 On 3/11/2011 1:07 AM, Ben McGinnes wrote:
 Out of curiosity, how big is that now?
 
 My complete /var/lib/sks/DB directory comes in at 7.8G.  Not too large.

That's smaller than I would have thought, but a *lot* larger than the
last time I checked (sometime in the '90s).


Regards,
Ben



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-11 Thread Johan Wevers
On 11-03-2011 14:33, Robert J. Hansen wrote:

 My complete /var/lib/sks/DB directory comes in at 7.8G.  Not too large.

How much of that is repeated automated signatures from the pgp keyserver?

-- 
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Johan Wevers


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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-11 Thread David Shaw
On Mar 11, 2011, at 8:33 AM, Robert J. Hansen wrote:

 On 3/11/2011 1:07 AM, Ben McGinnes wrote:
 Out of curiosity, how big is that now?
 
 My complete /var/lib/sks/DB directory comes in at 7.8G.  Not too large.

That's the on-disk SKS database format, and so contains a good bit of non-key 
data and other inefficiencies.  A dump of just key data is around 3.5G nowadays.

David


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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-11 Thread Robert J. Hansen
On 3/11/11 2:48 PM, Johan Wevers wrote:
 How much of that is repeated automated signatures from the pgp
 keyserver?

Don't know, but it would be an interesting thing to test.


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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-11 Thread John Clizbe
Ben McGinnes wrote:
 On 11/03/11 12:10 AM, Robert J. Hansen wrote:
 
 Not at all.  Every few days the keyserver network posts complete dumps
 of all the certificates in the system.  (Or, more accurately, various
 people within the network do.)  This exists so that new volunteers who
 want to contribute their services to the community can get their own
 servers bootstrapped.
 
 Out of curiosity, how big is that now?

Checking both of my keyservers:

Total number of keys: 2922831
  http://sks.keyservers.net:11371/pks/lookup?op=stats
@ 2011-03-12 00:00:46 CST
  http://keyserver.gingerbear.net:11371/pks/lookup?op=stats
@ 2011-03-12 00:00:06 CST

103 servers (from http://www.sks-keyservers.net/status/)
  64 active in the pool, 39 excluded from the pool (for various reasons)

-- 
John P. Clizbe  Inet:   John (a) Enigmail DAWT net
FSF Assoc #995 / FSFE Fellow #1797  hkp://keyserver.gingerbear.net  or
 mailto:pgp-public-k...@gingerbear.net?subject=HELP

Q:Just how do the residents of Haiku, Hawai'i hold conversations?
A:An odd melody / island voices on the winds / surplus of vowels



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-11 Thread John Clizbe
Ben McGinnes wrote:
 On 12/03/11 12:33 AM, Robert J. Hansen wrote:
 On 3/11/2011 1:07 AM, Ben McGinnes wrote:
 Out of curiosity, how big is that now?
 
 My complete /var/lib/sks/DB directory comes in at 7.8G.  Not too large.
 
 That's smaller than I would have thought, but a *lot* larger than the
 last time I checked (sometime in the '90s).

Ben,

That's the SKS implementation of the key database. On top of the keys, there are
several other tables. Within each table there is also empty space, most commonly
space left at the end of a page.

The present size of just the raw keys -- like you would pull in a keydump to
bootstrap a server -- is 4.38 GB

-- 
John P. Clizbe  Inet:John (a) Mozilla-Enigmail.org
FSF Assoc #995 / FSFE Fellow #1797  hkp://keyserver.gingerbear.net  or
 mailto:pgp-public-k...@gingerbear.net?subject=HELP

Q:Just how do the residents of Haiku, Hawai'i hold conversations?
A:An odd melody / island voices on the winds / surplus of vowels



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-10 Thread Hauke Laging
Am Donnerstag 10 März 2011 04:42:25 schrieb Ben McGinnes:

 Which brings us back to creating a pseudonym, using Tor (or other
 anonymising services), getting a disposable mail drop (or using
 alt.anonymous.messages) and going from there.  At the bare minimum.

A little practical advantage: If gpg had such a feature then the documentation 
may mention everything that is needed additionally (depending on the targetet 
opponent: spammers, facebook-alikes, secret police) or useful. Then people in 
a bad situation (which are probably no security experts) had a trustworthy 
source of information for planning their communication strategy.


Hauke
-- 
PGP: D44C 6A5B 71B0 427C CED3 025C BD7D 6D27 ECCB 5814


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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-10 Thread Hauke Laging
Am Donnerstag 10 März 2011 06:17:25 schrieb Robert J. Hansen:

 while you could conceivably come up with an
 email address with high enough entropy, it's easier to just use
 anonymous services and dead-drop emails.

Of course, you can create a key with UIDs without name and email only but such 
keys are not very comfortable to have in your keyring (What's that?). Of 
course, you can add a UID annotation feature without having the hashing 
feature.

But not having the hashing feature makes it more difficult to get the key (and 
key updates). Keyserver access is pretty anonymous. If you put keys on a 
website (the address of which the one can have given you who gave you the non-
public email address) then that is another way to try to reveal the identity 
of the communication partner.

I appreciate your effort to consider the problem as a whole. It would be a 
pity to create something that turns out to be useless in the end. But that is 
not a problem here any longer: Those people who just want to protect their 
social connections by signing other keys without revealing their identity to 
those who don't know it already have no need to cover their target addresses 
because the marketing people and just curious normal ones are not capable of 
reading their email traffic. So there already is a use case. Your objections 
for the high security cases are very good to raise awareness but point outside 
the gnupg sphere.

You made a brute force calculation. Why should keyservers allow brute force 
searches for hash IDs? If you use millions of remotely controlled idiot PCs 
simultaneously for that then it may be hard to track them but then we are 
close to a DoS, aren't we?


Hauke
-- 
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-10 Thread Ben McGinnes
On 10/03/11 12:46 AM, Hauke Laging wrote:
 
 There are several advantages:
 
 1) You don't reveal the social connections by signing keys. If you
 want to validate a key by its signatures and see a signature of an
 unknown key then there is (IMHO) no reason why you should know who
 has certified this key. This information can easily be abused. The
 perfect web of trust would be the perfect source of information
 which should be considered private (who knows whom). This problem is
 hardly reduced by the fact that there are signatures (from key
 signing parties) from people without real social or commercial
 contact.

I can certainly see where a number of people would be interested in
this aspect, while those people wishing to publicly announce that
they've signed particular keys can do so by not utilising the hashing.

 2) For people in countries where authorities' rights and actions are
 not as easily ruled unconstitutional like in Germany (or not at all)
 it is useful if not only the content of their communication is
 hidden but also the identity of the communication partners (even of
 those in free countries). This is, of course, more complex than
 hashing a key ID, thus I am not sure how important this feature
 would be (as you have to hide the partner's email address or the
 connection to the identity and these email addresses have both to be
 kept secret (because you can easily hash all publicly available
 addresses) and to be complex enough not to be guessed; this may
 result in greatnesses like sqq8ctpmbf81yucw8nzwb...@hauke-laging.de).

This, can only really work for the identities associated with a given
key.  At the end of the day, Alice still has to send an email to Bob
and a truly determined adversary who can intercept that email can at
least derive the key IDs the message is encrypted to.  Unless that
(incredibly annoying) feature of checking all secret keys is enabled,
of course.  I've forgotten what the option is called.

 In general it is useful for a web of trust to have long living
 keys. Email addresses are more easily changed than keys.

Yeah, well, I got so sick of changing my email address that I got my
own domain name (no, that wasn't the only reason).

 3) You prevent spammers from using keyservers as a source. Yes, I am
 aware that certain people on this list don't accept this as an
 argument (for different reasons). The most important point for this
 question is probably that the infrastructure has to be safe BEFORE
 it gets so big that it becomes interesting for spammers.

With the way most spammers operate, I think this is of little effect
until such a time as the majority of global email users have keys on
the keyservers.  Most spammers just generate usernames at a target
domain name.  At least that's what my Postfix logs indicate.

 Another reason why we all love Germany now.  ;)
 
 According to a new study it has the best worldwide image of all
 relevant countries worldwide. However. :-)

There's nothing quite like an unnamed report to back up a nebulous
claim.  It's probably right, though, albeit only because Iceland is so
bloody cold.  ;)


Regards,
Ben



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-10 Thread Robert J. Hansen
On 3/10/2011 5:23 AM, Hauke Laging wrote:
 You made a brute force calculation. Why should keyservers allow brute force 
 searches for hash IDs? If you use millions of remotely controlled idiot PCs 
 simultaneously for that then it may be hard to track them but then we are 
 close to a DoS, aren't we?

Not at all.  Every few days the keyserver network posts complete dumps
of all the certificates in the system.  (Or, more accurately, various
people within the network do.)  This exists so that new volunteers who
want to contribute their services to the community can get their own
servers bootstrapped.

If I want to brute-force the certificates, I'd just say, hey, I'm
interested in standing up a new keyserver, get a dump of all the certs,
and then do the brute forcing on my own system without ever needing to
hit the network.

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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-10 Thread Robert J. Hansen
On 3/10/2011 4:57 AM, Hauke Laging wrote:
 A little practical advantage: If gpg had such a feature then the 
 documentation may mention everything that is needed additionally 
 (depending on the targetet opponent: spammers, facebook-alikes, 
 secret police) or useful.

Someone would have to be crazy to write this.  The product liability
lawsuits alone would be daunting.  Remember that a jury trial is often
not so much about the law as it is about blame: if something bad happens
the jury wants to be able to point at someone and say, that person is
responsible.

If I were to write this, it wouldn't matter how big of a disclaimer I
put on the cover page: I would live in fear of someone hauling me into
court to say, Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I followed his
instructions and I got to spend six weeks discovering what my own liver
tasted like.  I blame him for the fact I was captured and tortured by
the secret police.

This also doesn't get into the problem of there being so astonishingly
few people on the list -- quite possibly *zero* people on the list --
who are competent to write such a thing.  A good rule of thumb in crypto
is to never trust ciphers designed by people who haven't first earned
their bones by breaking them.  The same applies to countersurveillance
and tradecraft: don't take advice from people who haven't first proven
their abilities at finding people who really, really don't want to be found.

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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-10 Thread Johan Wevers
On 10-03-2011 2:12, Jeffrey Walton wrote:

 Imagine you are Tunisian or Libyan or some other nationality where
 disagreeing with the regime might get you killed. Would you want your
 name and email associated with another's keyring?

I would not sign any key in that case. Even more, I would not sign any
email so the regime could prove I wrote it. I would only encrypt them.

 Or would you prefer anonymity?

Of course.

-- 
Met vriendelijke groet,

Johan Wevers


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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-10 Thread Hauke Laging
Am Donnerstag 10 März 2011 14:34:13 schrieb Robert J. Hansen:
 On 3/10/2011 5:23 AM, Hauke Laging wrote:
  ]Those people who just want to protect their
  social connections by signing other keys without revealing their identity
  to those who don't know it already have no need to cover their target
  addresses because the marketing people and just curious normal ones are
  not capable of reading their email traffic. So there already is a use
  case.

 Certifications come in two basic varieties: public and private.  A
 public certification is intended as an announcement to the world: Hey,
 world!  I am [name] and I vouch for this certificate!

That's the technical situation today. But it is no use to announce that to the 
whole world. It is required only for those people who use your signature in a 
validation chain. Everyone else does not need (and probably not use) the 
signature so there is no benefit for exposing the connection (though unclear) 
between the key owner and the certifier.


 If people want to make public pronouncements of social relationship, why
 in the world would you want to deploy a technology that makes it
 difficult to discover this social relationship?

I want to deploy this technology because

a) this is in my strong opinion not what people WANT (it's just what they DO 
because there is neither much awareness for the problem nor a usable 
alternative)

b) nobody who really wants to inform the whole world is in any way affected in 
doing that.


 This doesn't make any sense to me.  Quite possibly I have completely
 misunderstood what you're arguing.

May be a language problem, sorry. I'll try with an example:

You have validated my key (among others) and I (among others) have validated 
Ben's. Now you want to validate Ben's key indirectly. Ben's key has ten 
signatures, the one by my key is the only one usable for you. The next person 
who tries to validate find another signature useful. It's perfectly OK for me 
that you can see that I have signed Ben's key but why should others know that? 
Why should you be able to find out who are the other ones who have made 
signatures for Ben's key?

I would make a local signature if I would not want to let anyone know that I 
have verified the key. But in that case you could not verify Ben's key what I 
am willing to enable. The motto is: Don't reveal more than necessary. You have 
to reveal something in order to make the whole thing work but you don't have 
to reveal all.


Hauke
-- 
PGP: D44C 6A5B 71B0 427C CED3 025C BD7D 6D27 ECCB 5814


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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-10 Thread Daniel Kahn Gillmor
On 03/10/2011 03:09 PM, Hauke Laging wrote:
 You have validated my key (among others) and I (among others) have validated 
 Ben's. Now you want to validate Ben's key indirectly. Ben's key has ten 
 signatures, the one by my key is the only one usable for you. The next person 
 who tries to validate find another signature useful. It's perfectly OK for me 
 that you can see that I have signed Ben's key but why should others know 
 that? 
 Why should you be able to find out who are the other ones who have made 
 signatures for Ben's key?
 
 I would make a local signature if I would not want to let anyone know that I 
 have verified the key. But in that case you could not verify Ben's key what I 
 am willing to enable. The motto is: Don't reveal more than necessary. You 
 have 
 to reveal something in order to make the whole thing work but you don't have 
 to reveal all.

How does hashed user IDs address this particular question?  You don't
need to care about the User IDs on keys if you just want to map
relationships.

If i'm mapping relationships, and i decide from that mapping that a
particular keyholder is interesting, *then* the hashed User IDs might
become a minor stumbling block in my figuring out who the keyholder is
in the real world.

But the point of User IDs is to bind human-intelligible (and therefore
likely low-entropy) real world information to keys.  So if i have
reasonable computer resources at my disposal, reversing the digest of
low-entropy material seems like a possibility.

If you want to keep the fact that one keyholder has verified another
keyholder's identity secret, you cannot solve that by obscuring the User
IDs.

The right way to solve that is with non-exportable OpenPGP
certifications, which must be passed between users explicitly.

For example:

Hi Bob, I'm Alice.  Charles vouches for my identity as you can see from
this non-exportable cert.

In this example, Charles does not want the world to know that he has
certified Alice's key.  But he's willing to let Alice decide who knows
this information, so he gives her a copy of his non-exportable cert.

After Alice has introduced herself to Bob this way, both B and A know
about the C-A certification, but the rest of the world is still at a
loss.  either B or A could share this certificate with anyone else, of
course.  It's out of C's hands as soon as he gave a copy of the
non-exportable cert to A.

--dkg



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-10 Thread chr0n0

If one really wanted to overthrow the People's Republic of Berkeley, using
obfuscated e-mail addresses with the proposed methods outlined in this
thread would be akin to inventing a solution for a problem that doesn't
exist.  There are already numerous methods for off-the-record encrypted
communications.  Indeed, OTR was to devised as a protocol that allows
encrypted and authenticated communications without having to be a slave to
an interminable digital signature that might come back to haunt you.

As for remaining anonymous, one can merely connect to the IM server via Tor
or some other similar method.  Or one could even run their own P2P IM
software like XMPP thus cutting out the middle man.  Another option is a
hidden .onion IRC service or a SILC chat conference.  If one is really bent
on using e-mail, one can merely create a throw-away address using Tor and
then create a throw-away GPG key.  There are numerous ways to do this
already.

OpenPGP's goal is not anonymity or deniability.  If you want that, there's
better protocols and methods as Robert Hansen has hinted at already.
-- 
View this message in context: 
http://old.nabble.com/Security-of-the-gpg-private-keyring--tp31031263p31114600.html
Sent from the GnuPG - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.


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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-10 Thread Ben McGinnes
On 11/03/11 12:10 AM, Robert J. Hansen wrote:
 
 Not at all.  Every few days the keyserver network posts complete dumps
 of all the certificates in the system.  (Or, more accurately, various
 people within the network do.)  This exists so that new volunteers who
 want to contribute their services to the community can get their own
 servers bootstrapped.

Out of curiosity, how big is that now?


Regards,
Ben



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-10 Thread Ben McGinnes
On 10/03/11 9:23 PM, Hauke Laging wrote:
 Am Donnerstag 10 März 2011 06:17:25 schrieb Robert J. Hansen:
 
 while you could conceivably come up with an email address with high
 enough entropy, it's easier to just use anonymous services and
 dead-drop emails.
 
 Of course, you can create a key with UIDs without name and email
 only but such keys are not very comfortable to have in your keyring
 (What's that?).

There's nothing stopping you from creating an alternate gpg.conf file
(invoked via the --options flag) which points to different default
keys and even alternate keyrings.  Put the entire lot in a TrueCrypt
volume and when it's not in use, people won't be able to decrypt
enough to know about the alternate identities.

 Of course, you can add a UID annotation feature without having the
 hashing feature.  But not having the hashing feature makes it more
 difficult to get the key (and key updates).

Not necessarily.  You can put anything you like in the UID and people
can search on that.  Just running gpg --search-keys
alt.anonymous.messages should show a good list of keys where people
have done exactly that over the years.

 Keyserver access is pretty anonymous. If you put keys on a website
 (the address of which the one can have given you who gave you the
 non- public email address) then that is another way to try to reveal
 the identity of the communication partner.

There are plenty of ways to reveal the identity of of correspondents
unless a certain amount of effort has been put into anonymising the
transmission.  Anyone wanting to do this (including just to play
around and see how it works) would be well served by looking into Tor
and remailers.

 I appreciate your effort to consider the problem as a whole. It
 would be a pity to create something that turns out to be useless in
 the end.

Yes and it would be dangerous to create something which instills a
false sense of security.  This hashing idea is an interesting method
of preventing the revelation of a given identity (real or
pseudonymous) from a casual observer, but it does not prevent a number
of things which enable that information to be determined, including
traffic analysis.

 But that is not a problem here any longer: Those people who just
 want to protect their social connections by signing other keys
 without revealing their identity to those who don't know it already
 have no need to cover their target addresses because the marketing
 people and just curious normal ones are not capable of reading
 their email traffic. So there already is a use case. Your objections
 for the high security cases are very good to raise awareness but
 point outside the gnupg sphere.

The thing is, the hashed UID idea isn't attempting to address an issue
with GPG per se.  It's attempting to address an issue with privacy of
identity in a larger context; to whit, by attempting to conceal names
and social connections as they are displayed as UIDs and signatures or
certificates.  There are other ways to obtain this information, even
without utilising GPG or examining the body of a message.  Traffic
analysis alone reveals far more than who may have signed someone's key
at some point in time.

 You made a brute force calculation. Why should keyservers allow
 brute force searches for hash IDs? If you use millions of remotely
 controlled idiot PCs simultaneously for that then it may be hard to
 track them but then we are close to a DoS, aren't we?

Robert's already covered this pretty well.


Regards,
Ben



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-09 Thread Johan Wevers
MFPA schreef:

 Something that would not be necessary if the
 underlying openPGP implementations could handle hashed
 user IDs.

 Isn't it much easier to use the key ID / signature for
 that? You already have that.

 I don't understand.

Use the keyID / signature as the hashed user ID, since it (should)
uniquely identify the key. Since a hash is one way you can't derive the
email address from it anyway, from the keyID you also can't (directly)
deduce the email address.

-- 
ir. J.C.A. Wevers //  Physics and science fiction site:
joh...@vulcan.xs4all.nl   //  http://www.xs4all.nl/~johanw/index.html
Public keys at http://www.xs4all.nl/~johanw/pgpkeys.html



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-09 Thread Ben McGinnes
On 9/03/11 2:44 AM, Johan Wevers wrote:
 MFPA schreef:
 
 Something that would not be necessary if the
 underlying openPGP implementations could handle hashed
 user IDs.

 Isn't it much easier to use the key ID / signature for
 that? You already have that.

 I don't understand.
 
 Use the keyID / signature as the hashed user ID, since it (should)
 uniquely identify the key. Since a hash is one way you can't derive
 the email address from it anyway, from the keyID you also can't
 (directly) deduce the email address.

Ah, but the keyID can already be used to locate a key, that's not what
MFPA is getting at.  What he wants is a function built into GPG and
the keyservers, possibly via some kind of proxy tool, to do this:

* User generates a key, when prompted for a name enters Joe Citizen
  and when prompted for an email address enters j...@example.net

* GPG or interface for it takes those strings and generates a hash
  (let's use SHA256 for this example) so the UID for the key appears
  to be:
  7b7581fe6670a6a4a29b2fd46eaf5ac34a6a86d134fe8931729e66970b707349
  466ffe71badce782db1808ee80bd01dabf0d95e4a3b8ccbbe5fcdc68b86c2bb9

* Anyone trawling through keys on a public server or downloading
  random keys cannot see who owns that key or what their email address
  is, but anyone who knows Joe or his email address can search the
  keyservers for that data because the hash can be calculated from the
  data they do have (e.g. j...@example.net) and search for the key with
  the matching hash.

This would allow someone to use a single key for multiple identities
or pseudonyms, without the information about those identities being
learned by different groups.  Well, probably not.

Personally, I think it's an interesting idea and I can see the value
in it, but I'm not sure there are enough people really pushing for it
(yet).  With things like the data retention legislation being pushed
in Europe, Australia and other countries, that may change.

Not that Werner has to worry since he's in Germany and they ruled that
the data retention legislation was unconstitutional.  Another reason
why we all love Germany now.  ;)


Regards,
Ben



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-09 Thread Robert J. Hansen
On 3/9/2011 8:11 AM, Ben McGinnes wrote:
 Personally, I think it's an interesting idea and I can see the value
 in it, but I'm not sure there are enough people really pushing for it
 (yet).  With things like the data retention legislation being pushed
 in Europe, Australia and other countries, that may change.

It seems like this is really close to asking for private stream
searching, which would be the next logical step -- some way for the
client to query the database for a record in such a way there is no way
for the database to know what was queried.  This may sound alluring, but
it's an ephemera.  The current best-known PSS algorithm requires about
one zebibyte of traffic to do a ten-character ASCII search.

These sorts of blinded searches are really tempting, but there are
enormous theoretical hurdles to be cleared.  I would respectfully
suggest that if any discussion moves to PSS-type functionality, that
discussion be headed off at the pass.  :)



(Private searching on streaming data by R. Ostrovsky: PDF available at
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.78.631rep=rep1type=pdf
).

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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-09 Thread Robert J. Hansen
On 3/9/2011 8:11 AM, Ben McGinnes wrote:
 * Anyone trawling through keys on a public server or downloading
   random keys cannot see who owns that key or what their email address
   is, but anyone who knows Joe or his email address can search the
   keyservers for that data because the hash can be calculated from the
   data they do have (e.g. j...@example.net) and search for the key with
   the matching hash.

There are a couple of major problems here:

1.  There's not all that much entropy in an email address.  Let's say
that I want to harvest email addresses.  I create a list of, say, the
top thousand email providers in the world, and then every five-character
lowercase username.  For each five-character lowercase username, compute
the hash for that user name at each of the top thousand email providers.
 For each hash, look it up in the database.  Total work factor: about 11
billion hashes have to be made, probably under a terabyte of data --
very practical.

(a) And don't forget that with services like Amazon's cloud,
massive data crunching distributed across hundreds of
machines costs a few pennies per processor-hour.  This
has the potential to ruin your entire day: cloud computing
shifts the fulcrum of computational leverage *immensely*.

2.  To really gain benefit from this scheme, you must:

(a) have a non-trivially-brute-forceable email address
(b) want to be able to hide your email address

If you don't care (b fails), then this scheme is just an
inconvenience.  If you have a brute-forceable email address (a fails),
then this scheme offers no benefit.

3.  Deploying this scheme means:

(a) people can no longer do fuzzy searches for email
addresses (show me all user IDs that look like this
pattern)
(b) finding people's certificates may be made more
difficult due to (a)

4.  My suspicion is the number of users covered by (2) is pretty small.
 My suspicion is the number of users impacted by (3) is pretty large.
My suspicion is we do not have a very good handle on just how difficult
we need to make things, given the resources available to spammers in (1a).

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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-09 Thread Hauke Laging
Am Mittwoch 09 März 2011 14:11:16 schrieb Ben McGinnes:

This discussion has been there before (initiated once by me).

 This would allow someone to use a single key for multiple identities
 or pseudonyms, without the information about those identities being
 learned by different groups.  Well, probably not.

There are several advantages:

1) You don't reveal the social connections by signing keys. If you want to 
validate a key by its signatures and see a signature of an unknown key then 
there is (IMHO) no reason why you should know who has certified this key. This 
information can easily be abused. The perfect web of trust would be the 
perfect source of information which should be considered private (who knows 
whom). This problem is hardly reduced by the fact that there are signatures 
(from key signing parties) from people without real social or commercial 
contact.


2) For people in countries where authorities' rights and actions are not as 
easily ruled unconstitutional like in Germany (or not at all) it is useful if 
not only the content of their communication is hidden but also the identity of 
the communication partners (even of those in free countries). This is, of 
course, more complex than hashing a key ID, thus I am not sure how important 
this feature would be (as you have to hide the partner's email address or the 
connection to the identity and these email addresses have both to be kept 
secret (because you can easily hash all publicly available addresses) and to 
be complex enough not to be guessed; this may result in greatnesses like 
sqq8ctpmbf81yucw8nzwb...@hauke-laging.de).

In general it is useful for a web of trust to have long living keys. Email 
addresses are more easily changed than keys.


3) You prevent spammers from using keyservers as a source. Yes, I am aware 
that certain people on this list don't accept this as an argument (for 
different reasons). The most important point for this question is probably 
that the infrastructure has to be safe BEFORE it gets so big that it becomes 
interesting for spammers.


 Another reason why we all love Germany now.  ;)

According to a new study it has the best worldwide image of all relevant 
countries worldwide. However. :-)


Hauke
-- 
PGP: D44C 6A5B 71B0 427C CED3 025C BD7D 6D27 ECCB 5814


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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-09 Thread Hauke Laging
Am Mittwoch 09 März 2011 14:39:35 schrieb Robert J. Hansen:

 2.  To really gain benefit from this scheme, you must:
 
 (a) have a non-trivially-brute-forceable email address
 (b) want to be able to hide your email address

 3.  Deploying this scheme means:
 
 (a) people can no longer do fuzzy searches for email
 addresses (show me all user IDs that look like this
 pattern)
 (b) finding people's certificates may be made more
 difficult due to (a)
 
 4.  My suspicion is the number of users covered by (2) is pretty small.

As we all know you love anecdotal evidence, here's mine: You are probably 
right but consider two points:

1) Today there is no use in obeying the (2) rules. If such a feature is 
implemented then those who are interested in using it will consider creating 
new email addresses according to (2). Nonetheless the number of interested 
users may be small (but increasing with increasing public attention to privacy 
problems besides reading mail contents).

2) gpg offers a lot of features which I guess are used (and even known) by a 
small share of its users. Nonetheless they got implemented. Obviously the main 
argument is not the number of users but the quality of the software. There is 
a whole section Doing things one usually doesn't want to do. in the man 
page. I guess it contains more than 80 options.


  My suspicion is the number of users impacted by (3) is pretty large.

I have never done that. I cannot iamagine why this should be important to 
anyone. You know which email address you are going to write to, don't you? 
OpenPGP should not prevent new features because somebody abuses the 
infrastructure as a kind of address book.

More important: Not everyone is going to do this. Those people who regard it 
important to protect their addresses and names really don't care about 
convenience (if the alternative is omitting the feature).

It might make sense to print a warning if a user activates this hashing 
feature for a UID with an email address which is obviously not brute force 
safe.

And in contrast to Werner I do believe that signatures are going to kill the 
spam problem one day. :-)


Hauke
-- 
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-09 Thread Jeffrey Walton
On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 8:11 AM, Ben McGinnes b...@adversary.org wrote:
 On 9/03/11 2:44 AM, Johan Wevers wrote:
 MFPA schreef:

 Something that would not be necessary if the
 underlying openPGP implementations could handle hashed
 user IDs.

 Isn't it much easier to use the key ID / signature for
 that? You already have that.

 I don't understand.

 Use the keyID / signature as the hashed user ID, since it (should)
 uniquely identify the key. Since a hash is one way you can't derive
 the email address from it anyway, from the keyID you also can't
 (directly) deduce the email address.

 Ah, but the keyID can already be used to locate a key, that's not what
 MFPA is getting at.  What he wants is a function built into GPG and
 the keyservers, possibly via some kind of proxy tool, to do this:

 * User generates a key, when prompted for a name enters Joe Citizen
  and when prompted for an email address enters j...@example.net

 * GPG or interface for it takes those strings and generates a hash
  (let's use SHA256 for this example) so the UID for the key appears
  to be:
  7b7581fe6670a6a4a29b2fd46eaf5ac34a6a86d134fe8931729e66970b707349
  466ffe71badce782db1808ee80bd01dabf0d95e4a3b8ccbbe5fcdc68b86c2bb9

 * Anyone trawling through keys on a public server or downloading
  random keys cannot see who owns that key or what their email address
  is, but anyone who knows Joe or his email address can search the
  keyservers for that data because the hash can be calculated from the
  data they do have (e.g. j...@example.net) and search for the key with
  the matching hash.

 This would allow someone to use a single key for multiple identities
 or pseudonyms, without the information about those identities being
 learned by different groups.  Well, probably not.

 Personally, I think it's an interesting idea and I can see the value
 in it, but I'm not sure there are enough people really pushing for it
 (yet).  With things like the data retention legislation being pushed
 in Europe, Australia and other countries, that may change.

Imagine you are Tunisian or Libyan or some other nationality where
disagreeing with the regime might get you killed. Would you want your
name and email associated with another's keyring? Or would you prefer
anonymity?

Jeff

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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-09 Thread Ben McGinnes
On 10/03/11 12:24 AM, Robert J. Hansen wrote:
 
 It seems like this is really close to asking for private stream
 searching, which would be the next logical step -- some way for the
 client to query the database for a record in such a way there is no
 way for the database to know what was queried.

That seems unnecessary.  The conversion of a search string to a hash
can be performed locally and the hash can then be passed to the
keyserver.  If there is a match, the key can be retrieved or updated
and since a specific key will be requested there is no need to conceal
the search parameters further.

 This may sound alluring, but it's an ephemera.  The current
 best-known PSS algorithm requires about one zebibyte of traffic to
 do a ten-character ASCII search.

Wow, that would certainly kill my pissant little DSL connection.

 These sorts of blinded searches are really tempting, but there are
 enormous theoretical hurdles to be cleared.  I would respectfully
 suggest that if any discussion moves to PSS-type functionality, that
 discussion be headed off at the pass.  :)

Yep, fair enough.


Regards,
Ben



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-09 Thread Ben McGinnes
On 10/03/11 12:39 AM, Robert J. Hansen wrote:
 
 4.  My suspicion is the number of users covered by (2) is pretty
 small.

Very probably, at least at the moment (for the reasons Hauke
mentioned).

 My suspicion is the number of users impacted by (3) is pretty large.

Almost certainly.

 My suspicion is we do not have a very good handle on just how
 difficult we need to make things, given the resources available to
 spammers in (1a).

I don't really think the spamming scenario is of great concern.
Spammers get email addresses from plenty of other methods and there
are better ways to stop spam than preventing your email address from
being posted somewhere, including a keyserver.


Regards,
Ben



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-09 Thread Ben McGinnes
On 10/03/11 11:03 AM, Hauke Laging wrote:
 Am Mittwoch 09 März 2011 14:39:35 schrieb Robert J. Hansen:
 
 As we all know you love anecdotal evidence, here's mine: You are
 probably right but consider two points:
 
 1) Today there is no use in obeying the (2) rules. If such a feature
 is implemented then those who are interested in using it will
 consider creating new email addresses according to (2). Nonetheless
 the number of interested users may be small (but increasing with
 increasing public attention to privacy problems besides reading mail
 contents).

I'd agree with this.  There are enough increases in prying eyes from
governments and corporations for more and more people to consider such
obfuscation warranted or warranted under some circumstances.

  My suspicion is the number of users impacted by (3) is pretty large.

 I have never done that. I cannot iamagine why this should be
 important to anyone. You know which email address you are going to
 write to, don't you?  OpenPGP should not prevent new features
 because somebody abuses the infrastructure as a kind of address
 book.

I have.  Many, many times.  There's no point doing it for a free email
service provider's domain (e.g. gmail.com), but sometimes there are
advantages in checking for keys belonging to people at particular
organisations (e.g. government departments).  This is one of the
reasons why I'd prefer MFPA's suggestion, were it ever implemented, to
be optional rather than the default.

If that feature weren't available, I doubt I would've found this:

pub   1024D/B3F77236 2000-09-21
uid  Stephen Smith stephen.smith...@aph.gov.au
sub   2048g/0E0EEE5F 2000-09-21

Stephen Smith was in Opposition when he made that key, but now he's
Minister of Defence.

 More important: Not everyone is going to do this. Those people who
 regard it important to protect their addresses and names really
 don't care about convenience (if the alternative is omitting the
 feature).

In the mean time, those who would be more likely to do this end up
creating pseudonymous accounts and separate keys for each case they
wish to deal with.

 It might make sense to print a warning if a user activates this
 hashing feature for a UID with an email address which is obviously
 not brute force safe.

Good idea.

 And in contrast to Werner I do believe that signatures are going to
 kill the spam problem one day. :-)

Ah, but will that be in our lifetimes?

I don't know how much effect that will really have on spam, but I can
see signatures helping to prevent things like this:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Utegate

Following the revelation that the email at the centre of the scandal
had been faked by Godwin Grech, I did email my MP suggesting they
start using OpenPGP signatures.  Apparently the DSD had cleared
OpenPGP compliant software for use by government departments years
ago, but it was up to each department to decide whether or not to use
them.  Presumably Treasury and the Department of the Prime Minister
and Cabinet chose not to.


Regards,
Ben



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-09 Thread Ben McGinnes
On 10/03/11 12:12 PM, Jeffrey Walton wrote:
 
 Imagine you are Tunisian or Libyan or some other nationality where
 disagreeing with the regime might get you killed. Would you want
 your name and email associated with another's keyring? Or would you
 prefer anonymity?

Another perfectly good reason for wanting to conceal identifying
information.  There are, no doubt, plenty.


Regards,
Ben



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-09 Thread Robert J. Hansen
On 3/9/2011 10:01 PM, Ben McGinnes wrote:
 Imagine you are Tunisian or Libyan or some other nationality where
 disagreeing with the regime might get you killed. Would you want
 your name and email associated with another's keyring? Or would you
 prefer anonymity?
 
 Another perfectly good reason for wanting to conceal identifying
 information.  There are, no doubt, plenty.

I think it should also be noted that if I was serious about trying to
overthrow a government, I'd create a bare certificate without a name or
an email address on it.  I'd also use it as infrequently as possible and
try to avoid any technology more complicated than, say, a wheel, lever,
or inclined plane.

GnuPG will not keep your communications secure against major adversaries
who are willing to torture you for so long you think you've made an
unfortunate lateral career move.  It's just a tool in the toolbox.
You're going to need the rest of the toolbox, too.

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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-09 Thread Ben McGinnes
On 10/03/11 2:10 PM, Robert J. Hansen wrote:
 
 I think it should also be noted that if I was serious about trying to
 overthrow a government, I'd create a bare certificate without a name or
 an email address on it.  I'd also use it as infrequently as possible and
 try to avoid any technology more complicated than, say, a wheel, lever,
 or inclined plane.

Heh.  Trying to topple any government is definitely on the hazardous
side of things.  In general they're either large enough to have
enormous resources to track you down or small and dodgy enough to just
send a hit team.  Or both.

 GnuPG will not keep your communications secure against major adversaries
 who are willing to torture you for so long you think you've made an
 unfortunate lateral career move.  It's just a tool in the toolbox.
 You're going to need the rest of the toolbox, too.

Which brings us back to creating a pseudonym, using Tor (or other
anonymising services), getting a disposable mail drop (or using
alt.anonymous.messages) and going from there.  At the bare minimum.


Regards,
Ben



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-09 Thread Robert J. Hansen
On 3/9/2011 10:42 PM, Ben McGinnes wrote:
 Which brings us back to creating a pseudonym, using Tor (or other
 anonymising services), getting a disposable mail drop (or using
 alt.anonymous.messages) and going from there.  At the bare minimum.

Which brings us back to the elephant in the middle of the room: as far
as I can see there's no consensus on a use case for this feature.

Some people have a knee-jerk reaction to their email addresses being in
any searchable database and want their emails obfuscated.  Against this
threat, the proposed feature doesn't work: email addresses don't offer
enough entropy and the mechanism could be brute-forced.

Some people think they're going to take over the People's Republic of
Berkeley in a military coup and need to be able to deny their
connections to each other.  Against this threat, the proposed feature
doesn't work very well: while you could conceivably come up with an
email address with high enough entropy, it's easier to just use
anonymous services and dead-drop emails.

Has a use case been articulated for this feature, along with how this
feature would substantially advance the use case?  Because if not, one
really needs to be.

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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-09 Thread Robert J. Hansen
 Some people think they're going to take over the People's Republic of
 Berkeley in a military coup

Idiom note for non-Americans: the University of California at Berkeley
is often called, tongue-in-cheek, the People's Republic of Berkeley.
This is a (hopefully humorous) reference to having a military coup
taking over a college campus.

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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-09 Thread Ben McGinnes
On 10/03/11 4:20 PM, Robert J. Hansen wrote:
 Some people think they're going to take over the People's Republic of
 Berkeley in a military coup
 
 Idiom note for non-Americans: the University of California at Berkeley
 is often called, tongue-in-cheek, the People's Republic of Berkeley.
 This is a (hopefully humorous) reference to having a military coup
 taking over a college campus.

There hasn't been one of those since Kent State.  ;)


Regards,
Ben



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-09 Thread Ben McGinnes
On 10/03/11 4:17 PM, Robert J. Hansen wrote:
 On 3/9/2011 10:42 PM, Ben McGinnes wrote:
 Which brings us back to creating a pseudonym, using Tor (or other
 anonymising services), getting a disposable mail drop (or using
 alt.anonymous.messages) and going from there.  At the bare minimum.
 
 Which brings us back to the elephant in the middle of the room: as
 far as I can see there's no consensus on a use case for this
 feature.

Certainly not that I've seen, I just like exploring ideas that seem
interesting or which may lead to other ideas.  I have, however,
discussed this one at length with MFPA on another list (which one or
two other readers here can attest to).

 Some people have a knee-jerk reaction to their email addresses being
 in any searchable database and want their emails obfuscated.

Meh.  I'm not in that camp, that horse has well and truly bolted.
Besides, anyone who just knows my name and domain can easily guess
which addresses will work for me.

 Against this threat, the proposed feature doesn't work: email
 addresses don't offer enough entropy and the mechanism could be
 brute-forced.

 Some people think they're going to take over the People's Republic
 of Berkeley in a military coup and need to be able to deny their
 connections to each other.  Against this threat, the proposed
 feature doesn't work very well: while you could conceivably come up
 with an email address with high enough entropy, it's easier to just
 use anonymous services and dead-drop emails.

Which, for those people who need to attain a certain degree of
deniability, this already works very well.

 Has a use case been articulated for this feature, along with how
 this feature would substantially advance the use case?  Because if
 not, one really needs to be.

I'd like to cede the floor to MFPA for this one.  If he doesn't, I
suppose I can trawl through my PGPNET folder and find our discussion.


Regards,
Ben



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-06 Thread MFPA
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

Hi


On Thursday 3 March 2011 at 8:30:13 AM, in
mid:4d6f5195.2090...@vulcan.xs4all.nl, Johan Wevers wrote:


 Op 2-3-2011 20:25, MFPA schreef:

 It is also much easier to create new email addresses
 than it is to change phone numbers. And more practical
 to have multiple or short-life email addresses than is
 the case with phone numbers.

 Not really, here I can get a new (mobile) phone number
 by buying a prepaid simcard

Certainly that is true of mobile numbers, and thank you for pointing
it out. I should have specified I was referring to landline numbers
but since mobile numbers (in the UK) are not usually listed in the
telephone directory, it didn't occur to me.


- --
Best regards

MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com

If you are afraid to speak against tyranny, then you are already a slave.
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-06 Thread MFPA
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

Hi


On Thursday 3 March 2011 at 12:33:27 AM, in
mid:4d6ee1d7.2050...@sixdemonbag.org, Robert J. Hansen wrote:


 It's not a tangent at all, and for almost the exact
 reason you cite. You would say it can easily be done.
 I would say, it can easily be enforced.  I'm not
 seeing an effective enforcement mechanism here. Without
 that, I don't see how it can easily be done.

What would need to be enforced? If a user chose to use hashes when
creating their user-IDs, then all by themself without the need for any
enforcement mechanism they have obscured the data; somebody already in
possession of the data can compare hashes but somebody inspecting the
user-IDs cannot extract the information that is obscured.



 Basically what you're saying is, I don't want other
 people to be able to publicly share data that I feel
 personally identifies me.  That's a perfectly
 understandable want, but you can't make data
 uncopyable. Digital information may be easily and near
 costlessly copied and shared: that's just its essential
 nature.

Precisely the point of using hashes in user-IDs: all that would be
available to copy and share is a hash of the data.



 3.  I have email addresses that you don't know.
 These email addresses are readable from my key's user
 IDs. It is trivial for you to obtain these
 email addresses.

 4.  I have email addresses that you don't know.
 These email addresses are not readable from my key's
 user IDs. It is harder for you to obtain these
 email addresses.

 I don't believe 4 is the case at all.  In this era of
 Facebook, Twitter, social media and people profligately
 sharing information, well... this seems a lot like
 locking up the barn after the cattle have run off.

Even if you consider the search to be trivial, it is still harder than
not needing to search. I deliberately used the comparative. Now I'm
just being a pedant. (-:



 You're begging the question: how does it get made
 ex-directory?  In the case of a telephone, it's because
 you have a single point of authority who will enforce
 your wishes.  In the case of the certificate servers,
 how does it get done?

 I'm not saying it shouldn't get done or that I wouldn't
 like it if it were done.  I'm only saying that, at
 present, it doesn't appear it *can* be done.


The user already has complete control over what string to use as their
user-ID.

There is nothing stopping anybody from publishing a key with
user-IDs such as

b735ed0655b5a9017bc102f6b1799aa9959a3251
(55fbb2c0169d568bbd2ced25e1f47737e7ef3a34)
529ed52d3ec1186584ec75109e732f9b9da3f12d

but there is no point without a mechanism for other users to
select that key from an email address (or a name).

- --
Best regards

MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com

Lotto: A tax on people who are bad at statistics!
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=Jimz
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-05 Thread MFPA
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

Hi


On Thursday 3 March 2011 at 8:32:00 AM, in
mid:4d6f5200.5020...@xs4all.nl, Johan Wevers wrote:


 Op 2-3-2011 21:14, Daniel Kahn Gillmor schreef:

 You'd still need to do the work of changing, say, MUAs
 to re-think their key-selection criteria to include
 keys without e-mail addresses (maybe just based on the
 human-readable part of the To: header?)

 That can be done much easier: upload a version without
 the email address to the keyservers, and store locally
 a version with your (current) email. Then don't sync
 that with the keyservers of course.

I do that already. But what about anybody else whose MUA requires an
email address in the key UID to locate my key?


- --
Best regards

MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com

No man ever listened himself out of a job
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-05 Thread MFPA
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

Hi


On Thursday 3 March 2011 at 8:36:36 AM, in
mid:4d6f5314.1070...@xs4all.nl, Johan Wevers wrote:


 Op 3-3-2011 1:21, MFPA schreef:

 Something that would not be necessary if the
 underlying openPGP implementations could handle hashed
 user IDs.

 Isn't it much easier to use the key ID / signature for
 that? You already have that.

I don't understand.


- --
Best regards

MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com

Success isn't how far you got, but the distance you travelled from where you 
started
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=rNlT
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-03 Thread Johan Wevers
Op 2-3-2011 20:25, MFPA schreef:

 It is also much easier to create new email addresses than it is to
 change phone numbers. And more practical to have multiple or
 short-life email addresses than is the case with phone numbers.

Not really, here I can get a new (mobile) phone number by buying a
prepaid simcard for about 10 Euro (including 10 Euro credit). The
cheapest prepaid packages with phone are about 15 Euro (old model phone
that is being dumped). For some contacts that is precisely what I do:
give them a second number, if I get too many calls on it I don't want I
replace the simcard.

-- 
ir. J.C.A. Wevers //  Physics and science fiction site:
joh...@vulcan.xs4all.nl   //  http://www.xs4all.nl/~johanw/index.html
PGP/GPG public keys at http://www.xs4all.nl/~johanw/pgpkeys.html

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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-03 Thread Johan Wevers
Op 2-3-2011 21:14, Daniel Kahn Gillmor schreef:

 You'd still need to do the work of changing, say, MUAs to re-think their
 key-selection criteria to include keys without e-mail addresses (maybe
 just based on the human-readable part of the To: header?)

That can be done much easier: upload a version without the email address
to the keyservers, and store locally a version with your (current)
email. Then don't sync that with the keyservers of course.

-- 
Met vriendelijke groet,

Johan Wevers

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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-03 Thread Johan Wevers
Op 3-3-2011 1:21, MFPA schreef:

 Something that would not be necessary if the underlying openPGP
 implementations could handle hashed user IDs.

Isn't it much easier to use the key ID / signature for that? You already
have that.

-- 
Met vriendelijke groet,

Johan Wevers

-- 
Met vriendelijke groet,

Johan Wevers

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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-02 Thread MFPA
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

Hi


On Wednesday 2 March 2011 at 4:07:19 AM, in
mid:a27b6155-d269-47f2-923d-873e0c3f7...@sixdemonbag.org, Robert J.
Hansen wrote:


 The benefits of your phone number being ex-directory
 are the benefits that derive from it being harder for
 people to obtain your phone number without your
 permission, harder to link the number to your
 name/address, and impossible to find your address or
 phone number by looking in the phone book.

 Here the analogy breaks down.  Generally speaking there
 is only one telephone directory for a given geographic
 area, which makes it possible for you to keep your
 phone number private by keeping it out of that one
 directory.

Once, maybe. But for quite a few years (in the UK at least) there have
been many competing directory enquiries services, and more recently
the online versions as well. Choosing to be ex-directory is a
binding instruction to your telephone company not to release your
number to any such services.



 Email doesn't work the same way.  There is no
 centralized directory.

It is also much easier to create new email addresses than it is to
change phone numbers. And more practical to have multiple or
short-life email addresses than is the case with phone numbers.



 To keep your email private
 requires that you fastidiously keep it out of
 thousands, tens of thousands of directories.  This
 doesn't strike me as very practical.

For somebody who uses the same email address to communicate with many
contacts and keeps the same email address for a long time, that is
true. For somebody like me who uses various different email addresses
and replaces some of them on a regular basis it is plenty practical
enough.



 The benefits of keeping a telephone number out of the
 directory do not seem analogous to keeping an email
 address off the certificate servers.

Not exactly analogous (hence my admittedly not a direct comparison
when I introduced it) but I have drawn enough parallels for it to be a
relevant comparison. Of course there are differences.

- --
Best regards

MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com

Vegetarian: Indian word for lousy hunter!!!
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-02 Thread Daniel Kahn Gillmor
On 03/02/2011 02:25 PM, MFPA wrote:
 For somebody who uses the same email address to communicate with many
 contacts and keeps the same email address for a long time, that is
 true. For somebody like me who uses various different email addresses
 and replaces some of them on a regular basis it is plenty practical
 enough.

it sounds to me like you've simply made it difficult for people to
correspond with you over long periods of time because your e-mail
address isn't likely to continue working.

If your only concern is that you don't want your e-mail address publicly
visible on the keyservers, just make a User ID with no e-mail address at
all, and leave it at that.

You'd still need to do the work of changing, say, MUAs to re-think their
key-selection criteria to include keys without e-mail addresses (maybe
just based on the human-readable part of the To: header?)

But you wouldn't have to do any of the following:

 * specify and try to reach consensus on the syntax of a standard
Hashed User ID

 * modify underlying OpenPGP implementations to try digested searches

 * convince third-parties that it is worth their while to certify
digested user IDs

--dkg



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-02 Thread Robert J. Hansen
On 3/2/11 2:25 PM, MFPA wrote:
 Once, maybe. But for quite a few years (in the UK at least) there have
 been many competing directory enquiries services, and more recently
 the online versions as well. Choosing to be ex-directory is a
 binding instruction to your telephone company not to release your
 number to any such services.

The analogy continues to break down.  Binding, in the context of the
analogy, means if someone breaks this instruction, they will be hurt.
 Maybe the government will start a criminal prosecution, maybe you have
recourse in a civil lawsuit, but ... ultimately, if someone breaks this
instruction, they will be hurt.

Okay, fine: who are you electing to be the hurt-inflicter for the
OpenPGP community?  And in the absence of a designated hurt-inflicter,
how can there be a binding instruction?

The analogy you're drawing is appealing at first glance, but the more I
look at it the more it breaks down.

 It is also much easier to create new email addresses than it is to
 change phone numbers.

I would *far* rather change my phone number than change my email
address.  Probably a total of 50 people have my phone number: if I
change it, big deal.  If I change my email address, I'd probably need to
inform upwards of a thousand people of the change.

It may be true that *for you* it is easier to create new email addresses
than to change phone numbers.  It does not hold true for everyone, and
just how broadly it holds true is unknown.

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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-02 Thread MFPA
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

Hi


On Wednesday 2 March 2011 at 8:27:50 PM, in
mid:4d6ea846.4080...@sixdemonbag.org, Robert J. Hansen wrote:



 The analogy continues to break down.  Binding, in the
 context of the analogy, means if someone breaks this
 instruction, they will be hurt.  Maybe the government
 will start a criminal prosecution, maybe you have
 recourse in a civil lawsuit, but ... ultimately, if
 someone breaks this instruction, they will be hurt.

 Okay, fine: who are you electing to be the
 hurt-inflicter for the OpenPGP community?  And in the
 absence of a designated hurt-inflicter, how can there
 be a binding instruction?

You are going off at a tangent. The mechanism for preventing the phone
number being obtainable from a query of the phone book or directory
enquiry services is not relevant; just the fact that it can easily be
done.

Consider these scenarios:-

1.  I have a phone number that you don't know.
This phone number is listed in the phone book and at directory
enquiries.
It is trivial for you to obtain the number.

2.  I have a phone number that you don't know.
This phone number is not listed in the phone book or at
directory enquiries.
It is harder for you to obtain the number.


A parallel exists with:-

3.  I have email addresses that you don't know.
These email addresses are readable from my key's user IDs.
It is trivial for you to obtain these email addresses.

4.  I have email addresses that you don't know.
These email addresses are not readable from my key's user IDs.
It is harder for you to obtain these email addresses.


This phone number is not listed in the phone book or at directory
enquiries is easily achieved by being ex-directory; this does not
affect the usefulness of my telephone service. It is only easy because
the appropriate mechanism has been put in place to achieve it.

These email addresses are not readable from my key's user IDs is
easily achieved by simply not including them in the user IDs. This is
easy because the user ID field is free-text and doesn't have to be
Name (Comment) email address. This adversely affects the usefulness
of my key, since MUAs commonly rely on the email address in the user
ID for key selection.

Hashed user IDs are a possible alternative mechanism to achieve these
email addresses are not readable from my key's user IDs that could
have less of an adverse affect on key usefulness.


 The analogy you're drawing is appealing at first
 glance, but the more I look at it the more it breaks
 down.

I said in this respect the two are similar.
You appear to be saying they are not similar because in these
other respects they are different.



 It is also much easier to create new email addresses
 than it is to change phone numbers.

 I would *far* rather change my phone number than change
 my email address.  Probably a total of 50 people have
 my phone number: if I change it, big deal.  If I change
 my email address, I'd probably need to inform upwards
 of a thousand people of the change.

A good point well made.

I was comparing the effort involved in actually creating a new email
address (a few seconds to a couple of minutes at the keyboard) to the
effort involved in actually getting the phone company to change a
phone number (ringing the phone company, navigating their stupid menu
system, eventually getting through to a customer service agent in
foreign parts who barely speaks English, trying to make them
understand, discussing the reasons why they should provide the number
change - such as nuisance phone calls you have been receiving, wait
for the change to happen, chase up the billing errors, etc.).


- --
Best regards

MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com

Never lean forward to push an invisible object.
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-02 Thread Robert J. Hansen
On 3/2/11 6:34 PM, MFPA wrote:
 You are going off at a tangent. The mechanism for preventing the phone
 number being obtainable from a query of the phone book or directory
 enquiry services is not relevant; just the fact that it can easily be
 done.

It's not a tangent at all, and for almost the exact reason you cite.
You would say it can easily be done.  I would say, it can easily be
enforced.  I'm not seeing an effective enforcement mechanism here.
Without that, I don't see how it can easily be done.

Basically what you're saying is, I don't want other people to be able
to publicly share data that I feel personally identifies me.  That's a
perfectly understandable want, but you can't make data uncopyable.
Digital information may be easily and near costlessly copied and shared:
that's just its essential nature.

 3.  I have email addresses that you don't know.
 These email addresses are readable from my key's user IDs.
 It is trivial for you to obtain these email addresses.
 
 4.  I have email addresses that you don't know.
 These email addresses are not readable from my key's user IDs.
 It is harder for you to obtain these email addresses.

I don't believe 4 is the case at all.  In this era of Facebook, Twitter,
social media and people profligately sharing information, well... this
seems a lot like locking up the barn after the cattle have run off.

 This phone number is not listed in the phone book or at directory
 enquiries is easily achieved by being ex-directory; this does not
 affect the usefulness of my telephone service.

You're begging the question: how does it get made ex-directory?  In the
case of a telephone, it's because you have a single point of authority
who will enforce your wishes.  In the case of the certificate servers,
how does it get done?

I'm not saying it shouldn't get done or that I wouldn't like it if it
were done.  I'm only saying that, at present, it doesn't appear it *can*
be done.

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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-02 Thread Ben McGinnes
On 1/03/11 1:20 PM, Grant Olson wrote:
 
 I wouldn't mind testing to help out, but I'm not throwing away my
 current key anytime soon.

Ah ha!  Another hint about the scav hunt.  ;)

More seriously, I've been through this discussion with MFPA before and
I can see some circumstances where his idea might have merit, so I'd
be willing to help test too.


Regards,
Ben




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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-02 Thread Robert J. Hansen
On 3/2/11 7:37 PM, Ben McGinnes wrote:
 More seriously, I've been through this discussion with MFPA before and
 I can see some circumstances where his idea might have merit, so I'd
 be willing to help test too.

Same here.  I am deeply skeptical, but not unwilling to be proven wrong.

IMPOSSIBLE: means (1) I wouldn't like it and when it happens I won't
approve; (2) I can't be bothered; (3) God can't be bothered.  Meaning #3
may perhaps be valid but the others are 101% whaledreck.

-- John Brunner, _Stand on Zanzibar_

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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-02 Thread MFPA
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

Hi


On Wednesday 2 March 2011 at 8:14:08 PM, in
mid:4d6ea510.7080...@fifthhorseman.net, Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote:


 it sounds to me like you've simply made it difficult
 for people to correspond with you over long periods of
 time because your e-mail address isn't likely to
 continue working.

Not especially so. The ones I use for mailing lists etc. change
periodically. This makes no difference to people contacting me, since
they should be doing it via the list. Ones I use with specific
individuals or groups of people, some are quite fleeting while others
persist for years.



 If your only concern is that you don't want your e-mail
 address publicly visible on the keyservers, just make a
 User ID with no e-mail address at all, and leave it at
 that.

 You'd still need to do the work of changing, say, MUAs
 to re-think their key-selection criteria to include
 keys without e-mail addresses

Something that would not be necessary if the underlying openPGP
implementations could handle hashed user IDs.




 But you wouldn't have to do any of the following:

  * specify and try to reach consensus on the syntax of
 a standard Hashed User ID

Isn't that best handled *after* a proof-of-concept?



  * modify underlying OpenPGP implementations to try
  digested searches

Could these be handled by a local proxy? The openPGP implementation
(which is configured to use the local proxy as keyserver, and not to
check the local keyring) queries the proxy using the plaintext search
string. The proxy checks the local keyring for both the plaintext
search string and the hash, and returns the combined results to the
openPGP implementation. The proxy (simultaneously?) queries a
keyserver for both the plaintext search string and the hash. If there
were matches in the local keyring, the keyserver results are discarded
(or cached?). If there were no matches in the local keyring, the
combined results from the keyserver are returned to the openPGP
implementation and keys may be imported as normal.



  * convince third-parties that it is worth their while
 to certify digested user IDs

That is not necessarily harder than convincing them to sign user IDs
wit no email address.


- --
Best regards

MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com

Zorba the Greek - before he zorbas you
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-01 Thread MFPA
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

Hi


On Tuesday 1 March 2011 at 1:54:25 AM, in
mid:4d6c51d1.6030...@fifthhorseman.net, Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote:


 However, i'm quite serious about the flaws paralleling
 the failures of NSEC3 to prevent DNS zone enumeration.
 the problem space is slightly different, but i think
 the math comes out about the same in terms of the cost
 of trying to brute force these things.

 Ultimately, i think Hashed User IDs provide only weak
 benefit against the equivalent of zone enumeration
 through the keyservers (which is presumably the goal),
 so understanding these arguments and providing a
 convincing refutation of them (or outlining an entirely
 different benefit) is probably the first task someone
 would need to take on.

My analogy, admittedly not a direct comparison, would be having a
phone number that is ex-directory. It is no defence against random
dialling, nor against your number being recorded from outgoing calls
if you don't take steps such as withholding the CLI, nor against
somebody who has your number passing it on without your permission.
Despite these failings there is still benefit in being ex-directory.



 Having a hashed User ID alongside your non-hashed User
 ID provides no benefit at all

Those of us who use different email addresses with different contacts
(and/or periodically change email addresses) might generate a hashed
user ID for each email address, maybe with a non-hashed user-id for
our name. Similarly with role-based user IDs, a user might have their
name in a non-hashed UID but use hashed UIDs for their roles.


- --
Best regards

MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com

Is it possible to be a closet claustrophobic?
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-01 Thread Daniel Kahn Gillmor
On 03/01/2011 08:05 PM, MFPA wrote:
 My analogy, admittedly not a direct comparison, would be having a
 phone number that is ex-directory. It is no defence against random
 dialling, nor against your number being recorded from outgoing calls
 if you don't take steps such as withholding the CLI, nor against
 somebody who has your number passing it on without your permission.
 Despite these failings there is still benefit in being ex-directory.

What are those benefits?  Are they worth the tradeoff of having a large
number of non-human-readable User IDs?

--dkg



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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-01 Thread MFPA
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

Hi


On Wednesday 2 March 2011 at 1:43:45 AM, in
mid:4d6da0d1.20...@fifthhorseman.net, Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote:


 On 03/01/2011 08:05 PM, MFPA wrote:
 My analogy, admittedly not a direct comparison, would be having a
 phone number that is ex-directory. It is no defence against random
 dialling, nor against your number being recorded from outgoing calls
 if you don't take steps such as withholding the CLI, nor against
 somebody who has your number passing it on without your permission.
 Despite these failings there is still benefit in being ex-directory.

 What are those benefits?

The benefits of your phone number being ex-directory are the benefits
that derive from it being harder for people to obtain your phone
number without your permission, harder to link the number to your
name/address, and impossible to find your address or phone number by
looking in the phone book.

A key that had only hashed UIDs would have analogous benefits relating
to email address instead of phone number and to keyserver instead of
phone book.

A key with some hashed and some human-readable UIDs would perhaps be
like having two phone numbers, one listed and the other ex-directory.



 Are they worth the tradeoff
 of having a large number of non-human-readable User
 IDs?

Depends who evaluates the worth, how they evaluate it, and if you
accept that is really the trade-off.

I use different email addresses with different contacts and change
some email addresses regularly. Hashed UIDs would allow hiding my
email addresses from the people they are not used with, as well as
preventing a human-readable set of defunct email addresses. If I
included my email addresses in hashed UIDs, they are not
human-readable but could still be used to find/identify my key and
maybe even facilitate opportunistic encryption. At the moment I cannot
usefully include them hashed, so I don't include them at all. For my
own key, to me the trade-off is if hashed but still useful I will
include, if human-readable I will not. For somebody else encountering
my key, the trade-off is the email address they want to match is
either in a hashed user ID or it's in no user ID at all.

What is the disadvantage of a large number of non-human-readable User
IDs on a key? The User ID that I am using at the time (eg to select a
key) is useful, all others are irrelevant noise and may as well not be
human-readable.


- --
Best regards

MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com

Lotto: A tax on people who are bad at statistics!
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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-03-01 Thread Robert J. Hansen
 The benefits of your phone number being ex-directory are the benefits
 that derive from it being harder for people to obtain your phone
 number without your permission, harder to link the number to your
 name/address, and impossible to find your address or phone number by
 looking in the phone book.

Here the analogy breaks down.  Generally speaking there is only one telephone 
directory for a given geographic area, which makes it possible for you to keep 
your phone number private by keeping it out of that one directory.

Email doesn't work the same way.  There is no centralized directory.  To keep 
your email private requires that you fastidiously keep it out of thousands, 
tens of thousands of directories.  This doesn't strike me as very practical.

The benefits of keeping a telephone number out of the directory do not seem 
analogous to keeping an email address off the certificate servers.


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Re: hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

2011-02-28 Thread Grant Olson
On 02/28/2011 08:54 PM, Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote:
 On 02/28/2011 07:44 PM, Grant Olson wrote:
 
 You can pull a copy of a stalled/never-submitted Internet-Draft from here:
 
   git://lair.fifthhorseman.net/~dkg/openpgp-hashed-userids
 
 If anyone wants to push this further, please let me know.
 

I'll take a look when I get some more time.

To be honest though, I'm not particularly interested in the feature either.

I was just trying to illustrate that MFPA could get something going
without needing a new OpenPGP RFC, or without spending years of effort
until he got tangible results.  And if the (non)standard got got popular
enough, tools, whether they be keyservers or mail clients or gnupg,
would start to handle hashed userid lookups.

Even just two simple script that wrap around gnupg,
'generate-hashed-userid' and 'retrieve-hashed-userid', would be a huge
start.

 
 If that could be agreed on, you could probably get a few mailing list
 regulars to add that ID in addition to their normal UIDs.
 
 Having a hashed User ID alongside your non-hashed User ID provides no
 benefit at all (unless you consider confusing people trying to
 understand and/or certify your OpenPGP certificate a benefit).
 

Yes, of course.  I was just thinking of the initial implementation and
testing phase.  It'd be nice if MFPA could see that the tools work
correctly, by seeing the 'before' and 'after' versions of UIDs, and
without people having to maintain a separate secret key.  I wouldn't
mind testing to help out, but I'm not throwing away my current key
anytime soon.

-- 
-Grant

Look around! Can you construct some sort of rudimentary lathe?



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