On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 6:54 AM, Dave Cridland <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Fri Mar  6 14:42:50 2009, Eric Rescorla wrote:
>>
>> You MITM the initial connection, then wait for one side to offer his
>> proof. You then simulate a failure, crack the password, and move
>> on. Note that if the password is short enough, you can crack it in
>> real time and move on.
>
> Right, I see.
>
> Surely if I'm talking to Peter, and arrange a shared secret, and then I find
> Peter rejects it, I'm going to tell him pretty quickly?

What do you mean rejects it? The attacker simulates a TCP-level failure.
Alternately, he just stalls and waits for the client to give up if he can't
brute-force the password in time.


>> >> I heard suggestions of 4 digit PINs. Those can be bruteforced in less
>> >> than
>> >> a second.
>> >
>> > Still needs time travel to make this attack work, doesn't it?
>>
>> No.
>
> This is certainly going to be harder to deal with - the 4-digit pins are
> really related to hardware and other such dumb devices. I'd guess that with
> SRP, the timescales are simply going to be a bit longer, though?

I don't understand the question. The whole point of PAKE protocols is
that they preclude offline attacks--you need to do a new protocol run to
verify every guess. That's very different.

-Ekr

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