Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • January 31, 2016 7:56 AM

@ Who?,

It would be nice to know what experts on this forum think about his talk.

I read the article a few days ago and thought “stating the obvious”, but then I’ve been thinking about this sort of problem for a third of a century or so from one aspect or another.

I started out finding and exploiting attacks of the sort you find in the TAO catalogue. Only I’ve had quite a few years head start on them in some respects.

I Then found out where some of the kit I’d designed ended up (stealing IP) and as a result I started to think about “how do I protect me?” from such state level worms.

You have to consider the whole computing stack from the -X physical layers through the users/managers (8), market (9), legal (10) and up.

The problem with the -X physical / hardware layers is “bubbling up” issues into the higher layers. The simple fact is you can not realy trust the PC hardware from this century, thus you have a serious issue as old hardware becomes scarcer and scarcer with time.

Thus you have to look at other hardware sources or instrumentation and mittigation.

Other hardware sources are microcontroler chips upto around 2010. Many of these at around 1USD each are more powerfull than minicomputers that the likes of BSD Unix was developed on. Thus if you know how to port early Unix (the source and other info is out there) and are happy with the command line and no networking then you can make a secure four terminal unix system or something similar (striped back plan 9 might be better).

You also need to think about what “Bastion Hosts” and “DMZ” networks are realy all about. You also need to research how you deal with security levels using data diodes / sluices / pumps / etc.

But to get to grips with that you also need a reasonable degree of knowledge on TEMPEST / EmSec design philosophy and physics.

As I’ve pointed out in the recent past “air-gaps” are insufficient you realy need to think “energy-gaps” and “human data diodes” if you are looking at the higher security levels.

But even this is not going to stop the high end snoopers who have effectivly “backdoored hardware” in the chips, the supply chain or by black bag job.

The way to deal with this is by mitigation and instrumentation, which is a quite involved subject.

Not being funny but one of those 1980’s “fall out shelters” deep under your house is a good place to start if you want the higher levels of security. Building systems in safes with “auto zero” and other “bug-out” protection is another aspect of this along with the equivalent of SCIFs etc.

None of which of course helps with communications issues, which are an even bigger heap of problems.

But you also need to

Clive Robinson • January 31, 2016 7:03 PM

@ Skeptical,

But as a matter of ethics, I would think that any individual or organization has a moral obligation under certain circumstances, if within their power, to enable the interception or decryption of particular communications or information. Surely we can all agree on that much.

It would be nice to think so, unfortunatly there are several flys in the ointment.

Firstly as you know there is no requirment for LEO’s to tell the truth to anybody but judges and certain parts of the legislature. The fact LEO’s regularly get caught out telling at best half truths to judges at worst very much purjury, must make you wonder what they would say to those with access to keys etc.

Secondly LEO’s always have a “no tipping off” clause, thus those asked to make moral choices hear only the information LEO’s decide to present them with. Which on current knowledge is inadiquate for a moral judgment to be made.

Thus I would argue that if it is known that LEOs making requests have lied then they have no ethics. In a court case the “fruits of the poison vine” doctorine would apply. Which logicaly means that the only “moral and ethical” choice is to deny them.

LEOs should be held to way way higher moral and ethical standards than ordinary people because of “the imbalance of arms” and the significant harms they can cause by even very minor deviations from high moral and ethical standards.

Unfortunately LEOs are rarely if ever held to any kind of moral or ethical standard even when it has been clearly demonstrated that they have lied to judges or presented evidence they know to be false…

The only ethical or moral action to take is to design systems such that you can not be put into a position where you come under any kind of duress.

It has been shown to be a huge myth about “going dark” and this alone should give people pause for thought (it is afterall LEOs lying and not being held accountable).

But “eavesdropping” or “surveillance” flys in the face of justice as does the use of “agent provocateurs” and “confidential informants”, people have certain rights that should not be easily or recklessly set aside, and those that use deception to do so should be heavily punished.

The citizens should be able to “trust” the Government and it’s agents and entities such that any interaction with them.should not just be legal but fair and without malice. Having uncertainty or doubt about if they can be trusted is a significant and chilling issue for all citizens.

I certainly have little faith in many of the UK’s agents and entities, and have found some who are without doubt malicious in their actions. I suspect that a number of this blogs readers / commenters can also say that they “have little or no trust” of their Government. In such cases I can see good reason why third party “ethics and morals” do not and should not be questioned, and therefore there should be no way that such Government entities and agencies can lay such a duty with sanctions at a third parties door.

Clive Robinson • February 1, 2016 1:23 AM

@ tyr,

Hoping
it will go away if we just ignore it long enough.

There are evolutionary reasons why people do this.

Take “rain” for instance, peoples behaviour to it varies and slowly changes with time. Some people will not leave the building even in mid summer unless they take an umbrella or coat. Others however will in the winter “pop out” in shirtsleeves even in heavy rain, if it looks for a moment like it’s going to let up.

In most places rain is more of a nuisance than a threat to life, and experience tells us in temprate climates rain is usually “short lived”. Men are way more likely to discount the issue of getting wet more than women.

It’s the same for nearly every “normal experience” in life, things change and from our perspective more often for the better than the worse. Because we tend to remember bad to good changes rather than the other way around (the “glass half full/empty” effect). It usually has to be a very major life changing event for most people to behave differently. Thus the safer we perceive our environment the less likely we are to react to rare or unknown risk, unless startled.

Which is the crucial point, our concious mind in most cases over rules our monkey brain that causes the “flight instinct”. Evolutionary wise it makes sense in herd animals to keep eating rather than burn a lot of scarce energy taking flight. The herd provides normality and for the majority low risk, because preditors are actually few in comparison to the numbers in the herd, and thus as a prey animal you are generaly safer in the “target rich” herd than you are on your own.

For most of us a fire in the place we work which effects us is a very very rare event, as are floods mud slides and other environmental effects that can harm us… Thus “waiting for it to blow over” is actually the normal / sensible response based on life experience…

Exceptional and mechanical events hurt us because contrary to what we experience normally they don’t improve, they just get worse till it’s “too late”.

I’ve actually seen proposals to resolve these issues where by the audible and flashing alarms are made so loud and so bright, they will make staying physicaly painfull. In one case an audible alarm being so loud it could actually damage your hearing if you got within a couple of metres of it… And guess what, in testing people still did “the herd thing”…

Clive Robinson • February 2, 2016 8:49 AM

@ Bruce,

I see you were involved with,

https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/pubrelease/dont-panic/Dont_Panic_Making_Progress_on_Going_Dark_Debate.pdf

Are you going to put up a thread about it or shall “us interested parties” discuss it hear?