[Cryptography Team] Re: OpenSSL, Stunnel

[Chris Muller]

> Does anyone have any thoughts about the benefits and drawbacks of
> having the
> cryptographic code be an external black box?  Are there greater
> benefits to
> our having implemented our own code, for education and flexibility . 
> ?
> Personally I would prefer having the code be in squeak, but I thought
> the
> question worth asking.  Should we do both?

I think both is good.  Public black-box implementations are good for
those who just want to be more secure and not have to think about it. 
These are much more hacked upon which is good for scrutiny, but bad
when problems are found.

FYI, someone sent me this "advisory" claiming an exposure to the RNG
used by TLS/SSL key generation.

  http://www.gutterman.net/publications/GuttermanPinkasReinman2006.pdf


OTOH, I very much want to _understand_ the security, the best way for
me to do that is to get my hands dirty with our own code.  I think
understanding the why's goes far toward being able to make a secure
system.  It also seems less likely simpler, less-popular protocols
would, let alone could, be hacked since hackers probably want the glory
of breaking the "big" ones..  But this is a foolish thought to have.. 
:)

 - Chris

PS - One more problem with "external" black-box is its externality. 
Assuming you trust the black box, you still have to release sensitive
information into the communication-pipes of the OS to get it to the
black box..  With internal security, The attacker has to hack the
memory of the image, because no sensitive information ever leaves the image.