Discussion:
unknown
1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Permalink
When you start saying -- "TLS is out" -- that's great but then you've
excluded billions of users and devices. Also "self determined" storage,
imho, means that *I* get to choose my security preferences.

--001a11c23fbc01632b04eba5aa07
Content-Type: text/html; charset=windows-1252
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable <div dir="ltr"><br><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 21 November 2013 02:08, Simon Hirscher <span dir="ltr">&lt;<a href="mailto:***@simonhirscher.de" target="_blank">***@simonhirscher.de</a>&gt;</span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="im">On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 3:21 AM, Melvin Carvalho<br>
&lt;<a href="mailto:***@gmail.com">***@gmail.com</a>&gt; wrote:<br>
&gt;<br>
&gt; TLS *as an example* lets you exchange keys, and encrypt messages.  Rolled<br>
&gt; out to billions of users and devices.<br>
<br>
</div>What about MITM attacks? What about the fundamentally broken<br>
certificate architecture? The only way I see that both issues<br>
obviously can be solved is to solve the DNS issue right from the start<br>
and use public keys as fundamental identifiers. Now, we&#39;re back to<br>
Zooko&#39;s Triangle, an issue that GNS probably solves in the most<br>
elegant way.<br>
<br>
On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 3:21 AM, Melvin Carvalho<br> <div class="im">&lt;<a href="mailto:***@gmail.com">***@gmail.com</a>&gt; wrote:<br>
&gt;<br>
&gt; On 20 November 2013 03:05, Simon Hirscher &lt;<a href="mailto:***@simonhirscher.de">***@simonhirscher.de</a>&gt; wrote:<br>
&gt;&gt;<br>
&gt;&gt; On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 2:31 AM, Melvin Carvalho<br>
&gt;&gt; &lt;<a href="mailto:***@gmail.com">***@gmail.com</a>&gt; wrote:<br>
&gt;&gt; &gt;<br> </div><div class="im">&gt;&gt; &gt; Why do you say no other project is working on this?  How can you even<br>
&gt;&gt; &gt; know<br>
&gt;&gt; &gt; every project out there?<br>
&gt;&gt;<br>
&gt;&gt; Melvin, I obviously can&#39;t know every project out there. Let&#39;s do a<br>
&gt;&gt; search &amp; replace then:<br>
&gt;&gt; &gt;&gt; Because no one *we (or I) know of* is doing this *successfully*.<br>
&gt;<br> </div><div class="im">&gt; These are modular components, which elements do you think are not being done<br>
&gt; successfully?<br>
<br>
</div>I said those 4 problems are not being addressed successfully *at<br>
once*. And that&#39;s really the key to understanding why we can&#39;t just<br>
solve these issues by mostly building upon existing technologies –<br>
like TLS and web technologies. Because every project [again: I know<br>
of] is just paying attention to one or, at the maximum, two of those<br>
points and on the other hand makes it damn hard or simply impossible<br>
to solve those other two or three issues at the same time. Yes, some<br>
web applications might enable self-determined storage at first glance.<br>
But, meanwhile, by running server-delivered code (which might not even<br>
come from the server you trust – due to compromised TLS certificates)<br>
in your browser you give up on end2end encryption. So, no, it actually<br>
doesn&#39;t allow self-determined storage because there might be someone<br>
else listening.<br>
<br>
In fact, we could boil down the four requirements to just one:<br>
Self-determined storage. This already implies end2end encryption,<br>
perfect forward secrecy as well as social graph obfuscation because<br>
*I* determine who gets to see my data and my messages and my buddy<br>
lists. Now and in the future.<br>
<br>
Hence, to wrap it all up and answer your question in the shortest way<br>
possible: So far, there is absolutely no project that managed to<br>
realize genuinely self-determined storage.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
&gt; Why cant this be done in a modular way with different teams working on<br>
&gt; different pieces and then put together.  I agree maybe not all pieces are<br>
&gt; perfect, but we cant some of us work on fixing the bugs working together?<br>
<br>
</div>See above. Also, I don&#39;t even know where to start when talking about<br>
fixing TLS and doing web apps in a secure way. Then again, that might<br>
be due to the fact that their design is fundamentally broken with<br>
respect to our wishlist.<br>
<br>
Maybe I&#39;m all wrong – in which case I&#39;d ask you to tell me which<br>
building blocks you would use in our quest to fulfill those 4<br>
requirements. At the same time, I&#39;d ask you to explain to me why do<br>
you think it&#39;s even possible to fix all their &quot;bugs&quot; (I prefer the<br>
term &quot;architectural flaws&quot;) all at once. In short: Give me a plan I<br>
can believe in.<br>
<br>
So far, however, all those solutions you proposed in your previous<br>
email – regarding &quot;E2E + Forward secrecy&quot;, &quot;Social Graph Transmission&quot;<br>
and &quot;Self Determined Data Storage&quot; – aren&#39;t solutions at all. I think<br>
Carlo really has a point here.<br>
</blockquote></div><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">I agree with most almost everything you say here.<br><br>I could spend time going into much more details of the specifics of each modular component, but I suspect it&#39;s not going to be that productive at this point.  I think maybe a demo would work better, which is something I can work on.  It wont be read for this years conf, but maybe next.<br>
<br></div><div class="gmail_extra">

Loading...