Security Cryptography Whatever

With the 2024 United States Presidential Election right around the corner, we talk to an unnamed guest who has worked on cybersecurity for political campaigns in the United States since 2004. We recorded this in late August, 2024.

Transcript: https://securitycryptographywhatever.com/2024/10/13/campaign-security/

Links:

- Active Measures by Thomas Rind: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374287269/activemeasures
- Aurora: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation\_Aurora
- Google APP announcement, October 2017: https://www.wired.com/story/google-advanced-protection-locks-down-accounts/
- XXD: https://linux.die.net/man/1/xxd
- Adobe Reader October 2016 Security Update: https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/acrobat/apsb16-33.html

"Security Cryptography Whatever" is hosted by Deirdre Connolly (@durumcrustulum), Thomas Ptacek (@tqbf), and David Adrian (@dadrian)

We finally have an excuse to tear down Telegram! Their CEO got arrested by the French, apparently not because the cryptography in Telegram is bad, but special guest Matt Green joined us to talk about how the cryptography is bad anyway, and you probably shouldn't use Telegram as a secure messenger of any kind!


Transcript: https://securitycryptographywhatever.com/2024/09/06/telegram

Links:

- https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2024/08/25/telegram-is-not-really-an-encrypted-messaging-app/
- Lavabit / Ladar Levinson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit
- Pavel Durov indictment statement from French authorities: https://www.tribunal-de-paris.justice.fr/sites/default/files/2024-08/2024-08-28%20-%20CP%20TELEGRAM%20mise%20en%20examen.pdf
- MTProto 2.0 protocol spec: https://core.telegram.org/api/end-to-end
- https://words.filippo.io/dispatches/telegram-ecdh/
- MTProto 1.0 (old no longer used): - https://web.archive.org/web/20131220000537/https://core.telegram.org/api/end-to-end#key-generation
- OTR: https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/otr-wpes.pdf
- AES and sha2 used in ‘Infinite Garble Extension’ mode: https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1177.pdf
- Four Attacks and a Proof for Telegram: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=9833666
- History of Telegram e2ee chats availability: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegram_(software)#Architecture
- https://securitycryptographywhatever.com/2023/01/27/threema/
- https://securitycryptographywhatever.com/2022/11/02/Matrix-with-Martin-Albrecht-Dan-Jones/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_(protocol), introduced in September 2014

"Security Cryptography Whatever" is hosted by Deirdre Connolly (@durumcrustulum), Thomas Ptacek (@tqbf), and David Adrian (@dadrian)

Are you going to be in Vegas during BlackHat / DEF CON? We're hosting a mixer, sponsored by Observa! We have limited capacity, so please only register if you can actually come. Location details are in the confirmation email. Tickets will be released in batches, so if you get waitlisted, there's a good chance you still get in. Looking forward to seeing you in Vegas!

Ticket Link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/scwpod-vegas-2024-tickets-946939099337

We talk about CrowdStrike in this episode, but we know we made some mistakes:

• The sys files may be code in addition to data.
• The bug might be bigger than "just" a null pointer exception.

Luckily, none of that is actually relevant to the main issues we discuss.

Show page: https://securitycryptographywhatever.com/2024/07/24/summertime-sadness/

Other Links:

• https://csrc.nist.gov/projects/post-quantum-cryptography/post-quantum-cryptography-standardization
• https://dadrian.io/blog/posts/pqc-signatures-2024/
• https://dadrian.io/blog/posts/cto/
• https://www.blackhat.com/us-24/briefings/schedule/
• https://terrapin-attack.com/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AqayGm0_pw

More like ClownStrike, amirite?

"Security Cryptography Whatever" is hosted by Deirdre Connolly (@durumcrustulum), Thomas Ptacek (@tqbf), and David Adrian (@dadrian)

We have Mark Dowd on, founder of Aziumuth Security and one of the authors of The Art of Software Security Assessment, to talk about the market for zero day vulnerabilities, and how mitigations affect monetizing offensive security work.

Transcript: https://securitycryptographywhatever.com/2024/06/24/mdowd/

Links:

• https://www.azimuthsecurity.com/
• https://www.vigilantlabs.com/
• https://github.com/mdowd79/presentations/blob/main/bluehat2023-mdowd-final.pdf
• https://i.blackhat.com/USA21/Wednesday-Handouts/us-21-Hack-Different-Pwning-IOS-14-With-Generation-Z-Bug-wp.pdf
• https://i.blackhat.com/USA-19/Wednesday/us-19-Shwartz-Selling-0-Days-To-Governments-And-Offensive-Security-Companies.pdf

"Security Cryptography Whatever" is hosted by Deirdre Connolly (@durumcrustulum), Thomas Ptacek (@tqbf), and David Adrian (@dadrian)

iykyk

Transcript: https://securitycryptographywhatever.com/2024/05/25/ekr/

Links:
- https://hovav.net/ucsd/dist/draft-shacham-tls-fasttrack-00.txt
- https://crypto.stanford.edu/~dabo/pubs/papers/fasttrack.pdf
- https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8446
- SoK: SCT Auditing in Certificate Transparency: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2203.01661
- A hard look at Certificate Transparency, Part I: Transparency Systems: https://educatedguesswork.org/posts/transparency-part-1/
- A hard look at Certificate Transparency: CT in Reality: https://educatedguesswork.org/posts/transparency-part-2/
- E2EE on the web: is the web really that bad? https://emilymstark.com/2024/02/09/e2ee-on-the-web-is-the-web-really-that-bad.html
- Launching Default End-to-End Encryption on Messenger: https://about.fb.com/news/2023/12/default-end-to-end-encryption-on-messenger/
- ekr's newsletter: https://educatedguesswork.org
- Over 25 years of ekr RFCs: https://www.rfc-editor.org/search/rfc_search_detail.php?sortkey=Date&sorting=DESC&page=All&author=rescorla&pubstatus[]=Any&pub_date_type=any

Subscribe to his newsletter at https://educatedguesswork.org/

"Security Cryptography Whatever" is hosted by Deirdre Connolly (@durumcrustulum), Thomas Ptacek (@tqbf), and David Adrian (@dadrian)

Josh Brown and Paul Grubbs join us to describe how those damned spam calls work, and how STIR/SHAKEN is supposed to try to stop them, but have other privacy and security implications as well. 

Transcript: https://securitycryptographywhatever.com/2024/04/30/stir-shaken/

Links: 
- https://iacr.org/submit/files/slides/2024/rwc/rwc2024/98/slides.pdf
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3trxXF0-fRU
- Paul Grubbs: https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~paulgrub/

"Security Cryptography Whatever" is hosted by Deirdre Connolly (@durumcrustulum), Thomas Ptacek (@tqbf), and David Adrian (@dadrian)

(NSFW) Three AI-generated guests rank cryptography things into a tier list. Play along at home and make your own tier list: https://tiermaker.com/create/cryptography-15683166

This episode is definitely not safe for work and definitely a parody. Do not base your decision in the 2024 election off of this podcast episode. No campaigns have endorsed this podcast.

"Security Cryptography Whatever" is hosted by Deirdre Connolly (@durumcrustulum), Thomas Ptacek (@tqbf), and David Adrian (@dadrian)

Apple iMessage is getting a big upgrade! Not only are they rolling out ratcheting, but they’re going post-quantum, AND they’re doing post-quantum ratcheting! Douglas Stebila joined us to talk about his security analysis of the new PQ3 protocol update and not indulge our wild Apple speculations:

Transcript: https://securitycryptographywhatever.com/2024/03/03/post-quantum-imessage-with-douglas-stebila/

Links:
- https://security.apple.com/blog/imessage-pq3/
- Security analysis of the iMessage PQ3 protocol
https://security.apple.com/assets/files/A_Formal_Analysis_of_the_iMessage_PQ3_Messaging_Protocol_Basin_et_al.pdf
- Ratcheting design: https://eprint.iacr.org/2024/220.pdf
- When Messages are Keys: Is HMAC a dual-PRF?: https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/861.pdf
- Real World Deniability in Messaging: https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/403.pdf
- Padmé: https://www.petsymposium.org/2019/files/papers/issue4/popets-2019-0056.pdf
- Max Headroom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYdpOjletnc
- Extended Canetti-Krawczyk model: https://iacr.org/archive/eurocrypt2001/20450451.pdf
- Douglas Stebila: https://www.douglas.stebila.ca/

"Security Cryptography Whatever" is hosted by Deirdre Connolly (@durumcrustulum), Thomas Ptacek (@tqbf), and David Adrian (@dadrian)

We welcome Franziskus and Karthik from Cryspen to discuss their new high-assurance implementation of ML-KEM (the final form of Kyber), discussing how formal methods can both help provide correctness guarantees, security assurances, and performance wins for your crypto code!

Transcript: https://securitycryptographywhatever.com/2024/01/29/high-assurance-kyber/

Links:

- https://cryspen.com/post/ml-kem-implementation/
- https://github.com/cryspen/libcrux/
- https://github.com/formosa-crypto/libjade
- https://cryspen.com/post/pqxdh/
- https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/1933.pdf
- Franziskus Kiefer: https://franziskuskiefer.de/
- Karthik Bhargavan: https://bhargavan.info/

"Security Cryptography Whatever" is hosted by Deirdre Connolly (@durumcrustulum), Thomas Ptacek (@tqbf), and David Adrian (@dadrian)

Facebook Messenger has finally been end-to-end encrypted, a couple of years after Mark Zuckerberg announced it! Plus Instagram DMs are trialing ephemeral E2EE DMs too! We invited on Jon Millican and Timothy Buck from Meta to discuss this major cross-platform endeavor, and how David Bowie fits into their personal Labyrinth.

Transcript: https://securitycryptographywhatever.com/2023/12/28/e2ee-fb-messenger/

Links:

- https://www.facebook.com/notes/2420600258234172
- https://eprint.iacr.org/2022/1044.pdf
- https://engineering.fb.com/2023/12/06/security/building-end-to-end-security-for-messenger/
- https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/6/23991501/facebook-messenger-default-end-to-end-encryption-meta
- https://www.threads.net/@jonmillican/post/C0kQPAyoFpr
- https://engineering.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/MessengerEnd-to-EndEncryptionOverview_12-6-2023.pdf
- https://engineering.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/TheLabyrinthEncryptedMessageStorageProtocol_12-6-2023.pdf
- https://engineering.fb.com/2022/03/10/security/code-verify/
- https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/code-verify/llohflklppcaghdpehpbklhlfebooeog

"Security Cryptography Whatever" is hosted by Deirdre Connolly (@durumcrustulum), Thomas Ptacek (@tqbf), and David Adrian (@dadrian)