Tag Archives: voicesecurity

RFC 6189: ZRTP é finalmente un patrón!

Finalmente ZRTP foi atribuída unha misión oficial RFC, RFC6189 ZRTP: Key acordo mapa dos medios de comunicación para Unicast seguro RTP.

Tiña como unha dependencia do SRTP con AES tamaño de chave de 256 bits, que agora foi definida como RFC6188 .

É emocionante ver o RFC finalmente lanzado, xa que é un marco importante para definir ZRTP como o estándar oficial para cifrado end-to-end así como PGP foi a correos electrónicos.

Agora, calquera organización no mundo será oficialmente poder aplicar ZRTP para end-to-end encryption voz Protocolo

Actualmente tres diferentes implementacións públicas de protocolo ZRTP existe:

Cada un deles ofrecen diferentes recursos do protocolo, pero o máis importante son coñecidos por ser interoperables.

Unha nova onda está chegando ao mundo da criptografía de voz, irrupting nunha área gris onde a maioría das empresas que fan sistemas de cifrado de teléfono está a aplicar cifrado personalizado.

Agora, un estándar se configurou e hai poucas razóns para a esquerda para aplicar algo diferente.

Hurra Mr Zimmermann e toda a comunidade de empresas (como PrivateWave ) e individuos (como Werner Dittmann ) que traballaron nel!

Hoxe é un gran día, este tipo de tecnoloxía xa é oficial e tamén coa implementación múltiple existente!

Felipe, vostede fixo iso de novo, os meus cumprimento ao seu puro espírito e determinación :-)

Acción

Progreso para GSM rachaduras en Freiburg universidade

O excitante mundo de protocolos de móbiles (GSM, GSM-R, TETRA, UMTS, etc) hacker está quedando actividades oficiais de investigación das universidades.

O investimento a facer lanzamentos de código de software opensource fendas está dando a oportunidade aos estudantes de universidade para traballar nel, melloralo e facer a investigación forte.

A Universidade de Freiburg acaba de publicar o papel Exercicio práctico sobre o GSM cifrado A5 / 1 , xunto con un gsmframencoder ferramenta de apoio para mellorar o Sniffer, desencriptación e rachaduras proceso.

Apertura hardware, software apertura, o protocolo apertura demostrar a debilidade de calquera tipo de método ou proceso patentes para a acumulación de tecnoloxías de comunicación e seguridade.

Debe ser o obxectivo de todos os científicos intentando abrir-up e romper calquera tipo de tecnoloxía propietaria e pechada para forzar a industria a pasa só coa visión interoperable e aberto ao proxecto protocolos de telecomunicacións.

Acción

TETRA piratería está chegando: OsmocomTETRA

É moi emocionante ver o lanzamento do OsmocomTETRA , a primeira opensource SDR ( Software Defined Radio ) implementación TETRA demodulador, PHY e Mac capas inferiores.

É a versión de Tetris GSM airprobe que desbloquear o acceso aos datos e cadro de protocolo de comunicación TETRA, dando así unha grande oportunidade de hackers!

Agora que tamén tecnoloxía TETRA foi aberto hai que esperar, durante este 2011, a ver opensource sniffers TETRA e moi probablemente tamén cifrado TEA (o algoritmo de cifrado Tetra) rachado!

Tetris é usado pola policía, servizos de emerxencia e militares como unha rede de comunicación móbil alternativa que pode funciona mesmo sen a dispoñibilidade de cobertura da rede (só móbil-móbil sen unha estación base) e prestar algúns servizos especiais de alta dispoñibilidade.

Eu escribín sobre Tetris no meu slide voz importante revisión Protocol Security .

En OsmocomBB listas de correo xa discusión sobre algúns estado da rede TETRA:

  • Bélxica Policía TETRA rede Astrid: non cifradas
  • Policía alemá rede de proba TETRA en Aachen: non cifradas
  • Algúns rede TETRA ex jugoslawia: non cifradas
  • Netherland C200 rede TETRA: TEA2 cifrada con claves estáticas
  • Reino Unido Airwave rede TETRA: TEA2 cifrada con TEA2

Vai ser moi divertido ver que a nova policía e do servizo de rescate de hacking volvendo de cando analóxicos antigos para os novos radios dixitais :-)

Acción

Zorg, novo C + + e Java lanzamento público ZRTP implantación

Ola todo, hoxe en PrivateWave Italia SpA, empresa italiana involucrada no desenvolvemento de tecnoloxías para protección de privacidade e seguridade da información en telecomunicacións de voz onde estou CTO, nós liberados Zorg, unha nova fonte de ZRTP implementación do protocolo aberto dispoñible para descargar dende http://www. zrtp.org .

ZRTP [1] ofrece end-to-end de intercambio de chaves con Elliptic Curva Diffie-Hellmann 384bit e cifrado AES-256 SRTP.

Zorg foi orixinalmente desenvolvido e aplicado en PrivateGSM produtos de cifrado de voz do PrivateWave dispoñibles para as seguintes plataformas: Blackberry, Nokia e iOS (iPhone).

Zorg C + + foi integrado con PJSIP open source VoIP SDK [2] e se inclúe como Parches integración contra PJSIP 1.8.5. Foi probado no iPhone, Symbian, Windows, Linux e Mac OS X.

Zorg Java foi integrado dentro dunha versión personalizada do MJSIP [3] open source SDK da plataforma Blackberry e inclúe optimizacións de uso de memoria necesarios para reducir a actividade mínima colector de lixo.

Ambas as plataformas separáronse e cifrado modular back-ends de xeito que a implementación de algoritmos de cifrado poden ser facilmente trocados con outros.

. Zorg está licenciado baixo a GNU AGPL e código fonte está dispoñible en GitHub en https://github.com/privatewave/ZORG .

Estamos lanzando-a baixo o código aberto e en coherencia coa nosa achega á seguridade [4] como nós realmente esperamos que poida ser útil para o ecosistema de código aberto para crear novos sistemas de cifrado de voz en apoio á liberdade de expresión.

Máis de 20 baseado pjsip source software de cifrado VoIP aberto e varios escritos en Java podería beneficiarse directamente da liberación Zorg.

Ficaríamos felices en recibir proposta de cooperación, a nova integración, a nova cifrado back-ends, erro de aferição e calquera que sexa útil para mellorar e deixar ZRTP afirmar como estándar de cifrado de voz.

Zorg dispoñible desde http://www.zrtp.org .

[1] ZRTP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZRTP
[2] PJSIP: http://www.pjsip.org
[3] MJSIP: http://www.mjsip.org
[4] visión de seguridade: http://www.privatewave.com/security/approch.html

Acción

Cifrado móbil para chamadas de teléfono fixo con Asterisk 1.8

Acaba de lanzar un howto técnicas sobre como construír Secured móbil á infraestructura VoIP fixo con:

A próxima semana outros howto como este vai saír a usar outras plataformas de servidor, como FreeSwitch, todo no espírito de transparencia e de alavancagem de tecnoloxías de seguridade opensource.

Acción

PrivateGSM: Blackberry / iPhone / Nokia cifrado de voz móbil con ZRTP ou SRTP / SDES

Eu simplemente evitar de utilizar o meu propio blog persoal para facer a promoción de calquera tipo de produto.

Este tempo non é diferente, pero quero dicirlle feitos sobre produtos i traballar sen marketing fantasía, pero permanecendo técnico.

Hoxe, no PrivateWave onde estou CTO e cofundador , lanzamos publicamente produtos móbiles de cifrado de VoIP para Blackberry, iPhone e Nokia:

  • O primeiro xa Blackberry VoIP cifrado con ZRTP - PrivateGSM VoIP Profesional
  • A primeira vez iPhone VoIP cifrado con ZRTP - PrivateGSM VoIP Profesional
  • A primeira vez cliente VoIP Blackberry cifrado con SRTP con SDES clave cambial sobre SIP / TLS - PrivateGSM VoIP Empresa

logo-privatewave-colore.png

O PrivateWave usan unha visión diferente para a maioría refírese empresa cifrado de voz por aí, lea a nosa achegamento á seguridade .

A relevancia destes produtos na tecnoloxía e da industria paisaxe poden ser resumidas como segue:

  • É a primeira empresa de cifrado de voz usando só protocolos de seguridade normas (e esperamos que o mercado vai reaccionar, porque está claro que tecnoloxía propietaria que vén da herdanza do CSD non pode fornecer mesmo valor)
  • É a primeira aproximación na criptografía de voz a usar só código aberto e mecanismo de cifrado estándar
  • É a primeira visión de cifrado de voz para ofrecer modelo de seguridade con diferentes tecnoloxías (end-to-end para ZRTP e end-to-site para SRTP )

Aqueles conxunto de clientes Secure Mobile, deseñado para profesionais de seguridade empregar só utilizando mellor telecomunicacións e tecnoloxías de seguridade, proporcionan un alto grao de protección, xunto co bo desempeño tamén en malas condicións de rede:

As aplicacións son:

icona-pgsm.png

Os dispositivos móbiles compatibles son:

Canto ZRTP decidimos destacar e estirar toda a seguridade e funcionalidade paranoico do protocolo con algúns pouco diso:

Noso rigoroso integración libro de enderezos, vai alén ZRTP RFC especificación, que pode ser vulnerable a determinados ataques cando se usa en teléfonos móbiles por mor do comportamento do usuario de non mirar para pantalla do teléfono móbil.

A nosa forma de usar paranoy ZRTP mitigar tales condicións, imos escribir sobre iso máis tarde e / ou engadirá detalles específicos para RFC inclusión.

Algunhas palabras sobre PrivateGSM profesional con cifrado end-to-end con ZRTP

Ler ficha técnica alí!

Para baixa-lo prema aquí e simplemente poñer o seu número de teléfono

Estes son os resultados do traballo duro de toda a miña equipo moi cualificado (16 persoas traballaron nesta 6 proxectos para tres diferentes plataformas) en tecnoloxías reto (cifrado de voz) nun ambiente operativo difícil (redes móbiles sucios e sistemas operativos móbiles sucios) para obter máis de 2 anos.

Estou moi orgulloso do noso equipo!

Cal será o próximo?

A próxima semana vai ver liberación de gran conxunto de documentacións, como a integración con asteriscos, freeswitch e outro de seguridade activada PBX, xunto con algunhas outras noticias excitante tecnoloxía de seguridade que eu estou seguro que vai ser notado ;)

Foi un traballo árduo e moito máis ten que ser feito, pero estou seguro de que a seguridade ea comunidade opensource vai gusta destes produtos ea nosa visión transparente tamén con lanzamentos importantes abertas e integración de código aberto que fan unha tecnoloxía moi políticamente neutra (backdoor libre) .

Acción

Nin toda curva elíptica é o mesmo: a través da seguridade ECC

 A miña propia seguridade curva ECC e análise de selección

vn9jna1BdgrzDCYNBJHi09q09q.jpg

Máis moderno Crypto uso Elliptic Curve cifrado (ECC), que, cun tamaño menor clave e reducir o poder de computación, dar forza do sistema tradicional de cifrado coñecido como DH (Diffie-Hellman) ou RSA (Rivest, Shamir e Adleman) seguridade equivalente.

Non todo o mundo sabe que o cifrado ECC é seleccionado para todas as aplicacións de cifrado de futuros e que mesmo TLS / SSL (cifrado empregado para protexer a web) está movendo ECC.

Penso moito dos chamados "produtos de cifrado de propiedade", que abandonou a RSA e DH vai con alternativas ECC, que tenden a usar ECC tamaño da clave bits arbitrario, aínda sen especificar o tipo de cifrado ECC afacerse.

Con todo, hai unha gran confusión arredor das curvas elípticas, cunha chea de nomes diferentes e tamaño da clave, facendo difícil para un non cifrada experimentado usuario para facer a súa propia figura, ao avaliar algunhas cousas Crypto.

Por mor da confusión tan difundida que decidín facer a miña propia análise para descubrir cales son as mellores curvas de cifrado e tamaño de chave ECC ECC dereito de usar.

Esta análise quere proporcionar unha selección baseada en industria de seguridade entre varias curvas e tamaños de clave, deixando os matemáticos e crypto consideracións analíticas que xa ser feito ao longo dos anos, resumindo as varias opcións tomadas en varios estándares e protocolos de seguridade.

En primeiro lugar, a conclusión.

Da miña análise só as seguintes curvas ECC deben ser considerados para o seu uso en sistemas de cifrado, por que é o único seleccionado entre diferentes autoridades (ANSI, NSA, SAG, NIST, ECC Brainpool), diferentes patróns de protocolo de seguridade (IPSec, OpenPGP, ZRTP, Kerberos, SSL / TLS) eo único correspondentes requisitos de seguridade NSA Suite B (estándar de feito tamén para o ámbito militar da OTAN):

  • Elliptic Curve Prime 256 bits - P-256
  • Elliptic Curve Prime 384 bits - P-384

co opcional, só para realmente paranoico que desexa máis fundamental bit tamaño, aínda non considerados útiles:

  • Elliptic Curve Prime 521 bits - P-521

Gustaríame afirmar que as curvas de Koblitz debe evitarse, en calquera tamaño de clave (163/283/409/571), como eles non ten garantía suficiente na actividade analítica Crypto e eficaz son:

  • Non forma parte da NSA selección cifrado Suite-B
  • Non forma parte do ECC selección Brainpool
  • Non forma parte da selección ANSI X9.62
  • Non forma parte do OpenPGP selección extensión ECC
  • Non forma parte da extensión do Kerberos para a selección de cóbado ECC

Convida o lector a seguir paga a miña análise para entender os fundamentos que poderían ser entendidas, aínda sen coñecemento técnico profundo, pero polo menos cunha boa base tecnolóxica a algúns pouco básico de cifrado.

 Aquí imos nós coa análise
 

O meu obxectivo é facer unha análise sobre o que / como o científico aberto e elixir un sistema de cifrado de seguridade comunidade ECC para uso en protocolos de seguridade e as normas establecidas polo IETF RFC (os que definen patróns de internet dunha forma aberta e peer-reviewed).

Continuación un conxunto de RFC Introducing ECC no sistema existente que son analizadas para entender o que é mellor usar eo que é mellor para eliminar:

  • RFC5639 : ECC Brainpool defecto Curves & Xeración da curva
  • RFC4869 : NSA Suite B criptográficas Suite para IPsec
  • RFC5430 : NSA Suite B perfil para Transport Layer Security (TLS)
  • RFC5008 : NSA Suite B en en Secure / Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (S / MIME)
  • RFC3766 : Puntos fortes determinante para chaves públicas utilizadas para o intercambio de claves simétricas
  • RFC5349 : Curve Cryptography (ECC) Elliptic Soporte para cifrado de clave pública para autenticación en Kerberos (PKINIT)
  • RFC4492 : Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) Cipher Suite Transport Layer Security (TLS)
  • ZRTP cifrado de voz por Philip Zimmermann ECC curva
  • ECC en OpenPGP (draft d balsa-jivsov-OpenPGP-ECC-06 )
  • ECC Curves seleccionados por Microsoft para smartcard Kerberos sesión

Usaremos a escolla feita polo científico establecer protocolos de seguridade de internet para facer parte da nosa avaliación.
Ademais, debe ser entendido que a selección Curve vén de diversas autoridades que fixeron a súa propia selección de curvas, a fin de contar coa industria o que usar eo que saltar:

Usaremos a escolla feita polo científico a definición de requisitos de seguridade nas oficinas de normalización para facer parte da nosa avaliación.
Ademais, algo que a maioría da xente non sabe, pero que é moi relevante para a nosa análise, é que existen diferentes tipos de ECC curva cifrado eo seu "tamaño" é diferente dependendo do tipo de curva:

  • ECC Curves máis Prime de campo (moitas veces referido como Elliptic Curve e representado por P-keysize)
  • ECC Curves máis Binary campo (moitas veces referido como curva de Koblitz e representado por K-keysize)

Dada a forza de seguridade equivalencia a Elliptic Curve e Curve Kobliz teñen diferentes tamaño da chave, por exemplo, cando lemos ECC 571 referímonos á Curva Koblitz cunha forza equivalente a 521 ECC Prime curva.

A relación de forza entre curvas elípticas e Kotbliz Curves é informar por baixo (desde Mikey ECC internet Proxecto ):

 | Koblitz | ECC | DH / DSA / RSA
 | 163 | 192 | 1024
 | 283 | 256 | 3072
 | 409 | 384 | 7680
 | 571 | 521 ​​| 15360

Abaixo hai unha comparación de todas as curvas seleccionadas por todas as diversas entidades e os seus respectivos nomes (do IETF RFC4492 para o uso do ECC para TLS ):

 Curva nomes escollidos por diferentes organizacións de estándares ------------ + --------------- + ------------- SECG | ANSI X9.62 | NIST ------------ + --------------- + ------------- sect163k1 | | NIST K-163 sect163r1 | | sect163r2 | | NIST B-163 sect193r1 | | sect193r2 | | sect233k1 | | NIST K-233 sect233r1 | | NIST B-233 sect239k1 | | sect283k1 | | NIST K-283 sect283r1 | | NIST B-283 sect409k1 | | NIST K-409 sect409r1 | | NIST B-409 sect571k1 | | NIST K-571 sect571r1 | | NIST B-571 secp160k1 | | secp160r1 | | secp160r2 | | secp192k1 | | secp192r1 | prime192v1 | NIST P- 192 secp224k1 | | secp224r1 |​​ | NIST P-224 secp256k1 | | secp256r1 | prime256v1 | NIST P-256 secp384r1 | | NIST P-384 secp521r1 | | NIST P-521 ------------ + - -------------- + ------------- 

Que aparecer de inmediato é que hai só dúas curvas seleccionadas por todas as autoridades, e que hai un desaloxo xeral das curvas de Koblitz por ANSI.The só de común acordo entre as tres autoridades son os dous seguintes curva ECC:

  • secp192r1 / prime192v1 / NIST P-192
  • secp256r1 / prime256v1 / NIST P-256

Daqueles selección de cóbado ECC ao TLS RFC5430 ignorar completamente as curvas de Koblitz e seleccionado para só uso:

  • P-256, P-384, P-521

A ECC Brainpool ignorar completamente as curvas de Koblitz e seleccionado para o uso das seguintes curvas ECC:

  • P-160, P-192, P-224, P-256, P-320, P-384, P-512 (que é o único especial, porque non é P-521, pero P-512, a única chave de tamaño encamiñados por ECC Brainpool. tnx Ian Simons de Athena SCS )

O proxecto Internet OpenPGP para uso ECC en PGP d balsa-jivsov-OpenPGP-ECC-06 ignorada completamente curvas de Koblitz e seleccionou o seguinte curvas ECC

  • P-256, P-384, P-521

A extensión do protocolo Kerberos para uso ECC, define no RFC5349 e definido por Microsoft para a sesión smartcard ignorar completamente as curvas de Koblitz e seleccionou os seguintes curvas ECC:

  • P-256, P-384, P-521

Así, parece claro que a selección correcta do ECC é a P-256, P-384 e P-521, mentres que a curva de Koblitz foron ignorados para uso Top Secret e para calquera protocolo de seguridade sensibles (IPSec, OpenPGP, ZRTP, Kerberos, SSL / TLS).

Por que eu fixen esa análise?

Eu teño feito esta análise tras unha discusión que tiven con respecto a determinados produtos de cifrado de voz, todos baseados en protocolos propietarios e personalizados, que están todos a usar Elliptic Curva Diffie Hellman 571 bit / ECDH 571/571 bits ECDH / Koblitz 571 bits.
Todos eles están a usar o K-571 que, segundo se describe anteriormente, foi eliminado todo o ambiente de seguridade sensibles e protocolos e sendo eu un deseñador de cousas cifrado de voz eu creo que a súa escolla de cifrado non é absolutamente a mellor opción de seguridade.
Probablemente iso foi feito só para propósitos de mercadotecnia porque K-571 (Koblitz curva) parece máis forte que o P-521 (curva elíptica con base no número Prime). Se ten "pouco máis" o seu persoal de marketing pode pretender ser "máis seguro". Koblitz curva elíptica son máis rápidos do que a ultra-secreta activado curva elíptica principal e así dar o director de produto a oportunidade de ofrecer "algo máis" no seu propio produto, mantendo a rápida cambio de claves.

É unha cuestión de liberdade filosófica.

Prefiro seguir a tendencia da comunidade científica coa humildade de non considerar un experto en criptografia, máis cualificado do que a seguridade global ea propia comunidade científica.

Prefiro, en vez de usar só algoritmos que son aprobados para o seu uso en ambientes altamente sensibles (clasificación de ultra-secreto), que foron seleccionados por todas as autoridades e grupos de traballo que analizan algoritmos de cifrado existentes alí fóra e que representan a selección de case toda seguridade por defecto protocolos (IPSec, OpenPGP, ZRTP, Kerberos, SSL / TLS, etc.)
Prefiro contar a cantidade de cerebros traballando no Crypto eu uso, o cheque que é realmente seguro, que avaliará se hai algunha debilidade.

O número de Brais traballo en Crypto amplamente difundida son de orde de magnitude maior que o número de cerebros traballando Crypto utilizadas só por poucas persoas (como a curva de Koblitz).
Entón eu non estou demonizando que usan ECDH 571 usando Curve Koblitz, pero seguramente podo afirmar que non tomou a mellor opción en termos de seguridade e que todos os profesionais de seguridade facendo unha avaliación comparativa de seguridade que considerar o feito de que Elliptic Curva Diffie Hellman 571 bit feito con Koblitz Curve non é amplamente difundido, é despexado de protocolos de seguridade por defecto e non é aprobada uso secreto.

Acción

Remotamente interceptar snom teléfonos VoIP

Suxiro a lectura tocando remoto teléfonos VoIP "en VoIP Security Alliance Blog por Shawn Merdinger .

Un exemplo concreto de como infraestrutura de telefonía actual están cada vez máis vulnerables a ataques cibernéticos.

Acción

Taller de seguridade de comunicación de voz

Ola,

eu fixen unha charla sobre tecnoloxías de seguridade de comunicación de voz da Universidade de Trento, tras un intercambio de información interesante con Crypto Lab logrou Profesor Massimiliano Sala .

Eu sugiro que as persoas interesadas en lelo, especialmente na segunda parte, xa que hai unha categorización innovador das distintas tecnoloxías de cifrado de voz que son utilizados en diversos sectores.

Intento explicar e saír deste sector tecnolóxico amplamente fragmentado, e ofrece unha ampla visión sobre as tecnoloxías que xeralmente son absolutamente independentes un cada-outro, pero practicamente todos eles se aplican a voz de cifrado despois da categorización:

  • Industria estándares de cifrado de voz móbil TLC
  • Goberno e Militar estándares de cifrado de voz
  • Estándares de cifrado de voz de seguridade pública
  • IETF estándares de cifrado de voz
  • Varios tecnoloxías de cifrado de voz propietarias

É unha enorme slideware, 122 diapositivas, eu suxiro ir ler a 2 ª parte saltando visión tecnoloxías de interceptación xa cubertos pola miña presentación de 2009.

Seguridade das comunicacións de voz

Especialmente me gusta do concepto de cifrado de grao chocolate que quere fornecer algunha innovación no concepto de cifrado Snake Oil.

Pero eu teño para obter máis en profundidade sobre o contexto de cifrado de grao Chocolate, probablemente ha facer antes de fin de ano, ofrecendo un curso aplicado na comprensión e valoración práctica no contexto diversas tecnoloxías de cifrado de voz de seguridade real.

Acción

GSM craqueamento metodoloxías de probas de penetración (OSSTMM)?

Como a maioría dos lectores deste blog xa saben, nos últimos anos, houbo unha serie de actividades relacionadas coa investigación pública para GSM auditoría e rachaduras.

Con todo, cando houbo gran cobertura mediática para GSM rachaduras resultados da investigación, as ferramentas para facer a creba foi moi cedo e aínda moi ineficiente.

Agora Frank Stevenson , criptoanalista noruegués que xa rompeu o Sistema de Desprazamento contido do disco de vídeo DVD, participando do proxecto A51 rompe comezou por Karsten Nohl , lanzado Kraken , unha nova versión mellorada do sistema de craqueamento A51.

É interesante notar que rompe WiFi tivo unha historia semellante, como o primeiro descubrimento de fendas WiFi WEP foi moi lento nas técnicas anteriores, pero máis tarde Korek, un hacker de traballar en código rachaduras, mellorar o sistema de ataque drammatically.

Esta é a historia de cooperación en investigación de seguridade, comeza a procura, alguén seguilo e melloralo, algún outro seguilo e mellora-lo e ao final que obtén o resultado.

Ler máis sobre o Kraken GSM versión de software Cracking .

E sexa en conta a próxima semana en Blackhat Conferencia Karsten Nohl vai explicar os detalles da necesaria configuración de hardware e instrucións detalladas sobre como facelo :-)

Realmente gustaríame ver estas ferramentas incorporadas Proba de Invasión Backtrack Linux Distribution con OSSTMM metodoloxía de aplicación das probas de GSM interceptación e home no medio :-)

Se todo continuar así e Research Ettus (O productor de USRP2 radio software utilizado abaixo sinal GSM custo de recepción) non serán retirados, aínda podemos ver iso.

Acción

Seguridade de aceite de serpe afirma en produtos de seguridade de cifrado

Mercado de seguridade medra, máis empresas vai ao mercado, pero cantos deles están levando a serio o que fan?

Vostede sabe, facendo a tecnoloxía de seguridade significa que é persoalmente responsable da protección de información do usuario. Debe tornalos conscientes de que precisan, exactamente o que está facendo e que o tipo de modelo de ameaza o seu produto protexer.

Un problema típico de recursos de seguridade do produto é representado pola incapacidade do usuario para avaliar as alegacións do propio produto de seguridade.

Polo tanto, hai unha gran cantidade de empresas que fan un marketing non tan ético de recursos de seguridade, con base nos feitos de que ningún usuario poderá valora-lo.

A situación se explica anteriormente residen no tema da Serpe Encryption Oil, unha evolución no ámbito criptográfico ficción que hoxe imos usar o mellor das tecnoloxías de protección de datos da raza, sen ter que se preocupar moito con backdoors ou inseguridades seguridade.

Imos falar sobre Snake Oil Encryption

Cobra Cryptography Oil : En criptografía , aceite de serpe é un termo usado para describir os métodos de cifrado comerciais e produtos que se consideran falsos ou fraudulentos. Distinguir cifrado seguro de cifrado inseguro pode ser difícil desde o punto de vista dun usuario. Moitos criptógrafos, como Bruce Schneier e Phil Zimmermann , comprométense a educar ao público sobre como seguro de cifrado está feito, así como destacar a publicidade enganosa dalgúns produtos de cifrado.

O máis referenciado Crypto seguridade gurú, Philip Zimmermann e Bruce Schneier, foi o primeiro en falar de Snake Oil Encryption:

Aceite de serpe por Philip Zimmermann

Aceite de serpe por Bruce Schneier

O Massachusetts Telecomunicacións e Tecnoloxía Law Review tamén fixo unha análise moi boa relación cos recursos de seguridade de produtos de seguridade, SEGURIDADE Snake-OIL reclamacións "a deturpación sistemática DE SEGURIDADE DE PRODUTO . Eles explican sobre os trucos de marketing desagradables usados ​​para axustar os usuarios incapacidade para avaliar a recursos de seguridade, incluíndo a responsabilidade económica e xurídica implicación.

Very famous is the sentence of Russ Nelson : Varias empresas de produtos de seguridade de aceite de serpe non explica e non son claras sobre o modelo de ameaza á que o produto é aplicable moi famosa é a sentenza de. Russ Nelson :

"Teña en conta que, cripto sen un modelo de ameaza é como galletas sen leite. ..... Cifrado sen un modelo de ameaza é como a maternidade sen torta de mazá. Non podo dicir que bastante veces. De modo máis xeral, a seguridade sen un modelo de ameaza é, por definición, vai fallar. "

Entón, como identificar os produtos de seguridade de aceite de serpe?

Escribe unha guía de detectar aceite de serpe de cifrado produtos: aceite de serpe signos de alerta, software de criptografía para evitar por Matt Curtin .

You can see this very good Cryptographic Snake Oil Examples by Emility Ratliff (IBM Architect at Linux Security), that tried to make clear example on how to spot Cryptographic Snake Oil.

Here represented the basic guideline from Matt Curtin paper:


By checking that points it's possible to evaluate how serious an encryption technology or product is.

But all in all how to fix that unethical security approach?

It's very significative and it would be really useful for each kind of security product category to make some strongly and independent evaluation guideline (like OSSTMM for Penetration testing) , to make this security evaluation process really in the hands of the user.

It would be also very nice to have someone making analysis and evaluation of security product companies, publishing reports about Snake Oil signs.

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China Encryption Regulations

Ola todo,

i found this very interesting paper on China Encryption Import/Export/Domestic Regulations done by Baker&Mckenzie in the US.

É fortemente comercial e regulatorias orientada dando unha visión moi ben feito sobre a forma como as normativas china funciona e como pode comportarse no futuro.

Read here Decrypting China Encryption's Regulations (form Bakernet website) .

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The (old) Crypto AG case and some thinking about it

In the '90, closed source and proprietary cryptography was ruling the world.

That's before open source and scientifically approved encrypted technologies went out as a best practice to do crypto stuff.

I would like to remind when, in 1992, USA along with Israel was, together with switzerland, providing backdoored (proprietary and secret) technologies to Iranian government to tap their communications, cheating them to think that the used solution was secure , making also some consideration on this today in 2010.

caq63crypto.t.jpg

That's called The Crypto AG case , an historical fact involving the United States National Security Agency along with Signal Intelligence Division of Israel Ministry of Defense that are strongly suspected to had made an agreement with the Swiss cryptography producer company Crypto AG .

Basically those entities placed a backdoor in the secure crypto equipment that they provided to Iran to intercept Iranian communications.

Their crypto was based on secret and proprietary encryption algorithms developed by Crypto AG and eventually customized for Iranian government.

You can read some other facts about Crypto AG backdoor related issues:

The demise of global telecommunication security

The NSA-Crypto AG sting

Breaking codes: an impossible task? By BBC

Der Spiegel Crypto AG (german) article

Now, in 2010, we all know and understand that secret and proprietary crypto does not work.

Just some reference by top worldwide cryptographic experts below:

Secrecy, Security, Obscurity by Bruce Schneier

Just say No to Proprietary cryptographic Algorithms by Network Computing (Mike Fratto)

Security Through Obscurity by Ceria Purdue University

Unlocking the Secrets of Crypto: Cryptography, Encryption and Cryptology explained by Symantec

Time change the way things are approached.

I like very much the famous Philip Zimmermann assertion:

“Cryptography used to be an obscure science, of little relevance to everyday life. Historically, it always had a special role in military and diplomatic communications. But in the Information Age, cryptography is about political power, and in particular, about the power relationship between a government and its people. It is about the right to privacy, freedom of speech, freedom of political association, freedom of the press, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, freedom to be left alone.”

Any scientist today accept and approve the Kerckhoffs' Principle that in 1883 in the Cryptographie Militaire paper stated:

The security of a cryptosystem should not depend on keeping the algorithm secret, but only on keeping the numeric key secret.

It's absolutely clear that the best practice for doing cryptography today obbly any serious person to do open cryptography, subject to public review and that follow the Kerckhoff principle.

So, what we should think about closed source, proprietary cryptography that's based on security trough obscurity concepts?

I was EXTREMELY astonished when TODAY, in 2010, in the age of information society i read some paper on Crypto AG website.

I invite all to read the Crypto AG security paper called Sophisticated Security Architecture designed by Crypto AG of which you can get a significant excerpt below:

The design of this architecture allows Crypto AG to provide a secret proprietary algorithm that can be specified for each customer to assure the perfect degree of cryptographic security and optimum support for the customer's security policy. In turn, the Security Architecture gives you the influence you need to be fully independent in respect of your encryption solution. You can determine all areas that are covered by cryptography and verify how the algorithm works. The original secret proprietary algorithm of Crypto AG is the foundation of the Security Architecture .

I have to say that their architecture is absolutely good from TLC point of view. Also they have done a very good job in making the design of the overall architecture in order to make a tamper-proof resistant crypto system by using dedicated crypto processor .
However there is still something missing:

T he overall cryptographic concept is misleading, based on wrong encryption concepts .

You may think that i am a troll telling this, but given the history of Crypto AG and given the fact that all the scientific and security community does not approve security trough obscurity concepts , it would legitimate to ask ourself:

Why they are still doing security trough obscurity cryptography with secret and proprietary algorithms ?



Hey, i think that they have very depth knowledge on telecommunication and security, but given that the science tell us not to follow the secrecy of algorithms, i really have serious doubt on why they are still providing proprietary encryption and does not move to standard solutions (eventually with some kind of custom enhancement).

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Mobile Security talk at WHYMCA conference

I want to share some slides i used to talk about mobile security at whymca mobile conference in Milan.

Read here my slides on mobile security .

The slides provide a wide an in-depth overview of mobile security related matters, i should be doing some slidecast about it putting also audio. Maybe will do, maybe not, it depends on time that's always a insufficient resource.

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iPhone PIN: useless encryption

I recently switched one of my multiple mobile phones with which i go around to iPhone.

I am particularly concerned about data protection in case of theft and so started having a look around about the iPhone provided protection system.

There is an interesting set of iPhone Business Security Features that make me think that iPhone is moving in the right path for security protection of the phone, but still a lot of things has to be done, especially for serious Enterprise and Government users.

201006011551.jpg

For example it turned out that the iPhone PIN protection is useless and it can be broken just plugging the iPhone to a Linux machine and accessing the device like a USB stick.

That's something disturbing my paranoid mindset that make me think not to use sensitive data on my iPhone if i cannot protect my data.

Probably an iPhone independent disk encryption product would be very useful in order to let the market create protection schemas that fit the different risk contexts that different users may have.

Probably a general consumer is not worried about this PIN vulnerability but for me, working within highly confidential envirnonment such as intelligence, finance and military, it's something that i cannot accept.

I need strong disk encryption on my mobile phone.

I do strong voice encryption for it , but it would be really nice to have also something to protect the whole iPhone data and not just phone calls.

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Exploit code against SecurStar DriveCrypt published

It seems that the hacking community somehow like to target securstar products, maybe because hacking community doesn't like the often revealed unethical approach already previously described in this blog by articles and user's comments.

In 2004 a lot of accusation against Hafner of SecurStar went out because of alleged intellectual property theft regarding opensource codes such as Encryption 4 the masses and legal advert also against the Free and opensource TrueCrypt project .

In 2008 there was a pre-boot authentication hacking against DriveCrypt Plus posted on Full-Disclosure.

Early 2010 it was the time of the fake infosecurity research secretly sponsored by securstar at http://infosecurityguard.com (that now they tried to remove from the web because of embarrassing situation, but backup of the story are available, hacking community still wait for apologies) .

Now, mid 2010, following a research published in December 2009 about Disk Encryption software vulnerabilities made by Neil Kettle (mu-b), Security researcher at digit-labs and Penetration tester at Convergent Network Solutions , DriveCrypt was found to be vulnerable and exploitable breaking on-device security of the system and exploit code has been just released.

Exploit code reported below (thanks Neil for the code release!):

  • Arbitrary kernel code execution security exploit of DriveCrypt: drivecrypt-dcr.c
  • Arbitrary file reading/writing security exploit via unchecked user-definable parameters to ZxCreateFile/ReadFile/ WriteFile: drivecrypt-fopen.c

The exploit code has been tested against DriveCrypt 5.3, currently released DriveCrypt 5.4 is reported to be vulnerable too as it has just minor changes related to win7 compatibility. Can anyone make a double check and report a comment here?

Very good job Neil!

In the meantime the Free Truecrypt is probably the preferred choice for disk encryption, given the fact that it's difficult to trust DriveCrypt, PGP has been acquired by Symantec and there are very bad rumors about the trust that people have in Symantec and there are not many widely available alternatives.

Rumors say that also PhoneCrypt binaries are getting analyzed and the proprietary encryption system could reveal something fun…

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great point of view

Because security of a cryptographic system it's not a matter of “how many bits do i use” but using the right approach to do the right thing to mitigate the defined security risk in the most balanced way.

security.png

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Encryption is not scrambling: be aware of scrambler!

Most of us know about voice scrambler that can be used across almost any kind of voice based communication technology.

Extremely flexible approach: works everything

Extreme performance: very low latency

but unfortunately…

Extremely weak: Scrambling cannot be considered secure.

Only encryption can be considered secure under the Kerckoff's principle .

So please don't even consider any kind of analog scrambler if you need real security.

Read deeply the paper Implementation of a real-time voice encryption system ” by Markus Brandau, especially the cryptoanalysis paragraph.

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SecurStar GmbH Phonecrypt answers on the Infosecurityguard/Notrax case: absolutely unreasonable! :-)

UPDATE 20.04.2010: http://infosecurityguard.com has been disabled. Notrax identity became known to several guys in the voice security environments (cannot tell, but you can imagine, i was right!) and so our friends decided to trow away the website because of legal responsibility under UK and USA laws.

UPDATE: Nice summary of the whole story (i know, it's long and complicated to read at 1st time) on SIPVicious VoIP security blog by Sandro Gauci .

Following my discoveries, Mr. Hafner, SecurStar chief exec, tried to ultimately defend their actions, citing absolutely unreasonable excuses to The Reg instead of publicly apologizing for what they have done: creating a fake independent security research to promote their PhoneCrypt product .

He tried to convince us that the person behind IP 217.7.213.59, used by the author of infosecurityguard.com and pointing to their office DSL line, was this hacker Notrax, using their anonymous surfing service and not one of their employees at their office:

“SecurStar chief exec Wilfried Hafner denied any contact with Notrax. Notrax, he said, must have been using his firm's anonymous browsing service, SurfSolo, to produce the results reported by Pietrosanti”

Let's reflect a moment on this sentence… Would really an hacker looking for anonymity spend 64 EUR to buy their anonymity surfing service called surfsolo instead of using the free and much more secure TOR (the onion router) ?Then let's reflect on this other piece of information:

  • The IP 217.7.213.59 is SecurStar GmbH's office DSL line
  • On 217.7.213.59 they have installed their VoIP/Asterisk PBX and internet gateway
  • They promote their anonymous proxy service for “Anonymous p2p use” ( http://www.securstar.com/products_ssolo.php ). Who would let users do p2p from the office dsl line where they have installed their corporate VoIP PBX ? If you do VoIP you can't let third party flood your line w/ p2p traffic, your phone calls would became obviously unreliable (yes, yes, you can do QoS, but you would not place an anonymous navigation proxy on your company office DSL line…).
  • Which company providing an anonymous navigation service would ever use their own office IP address? Just think how many times you would have the police knocking at your door and your employees as the prime suspects. (In past i used to run a TOR node, i know the risks…). Also think how many times you would find yourself blacklisted on google as a spyware bot.
  • Mr. Hafner also says “We have two million people using this product. Or he may have been an old customer of ours”. 2M users on a DSL line, really?
  • I don't use Surfsolo service, however their proxies are probably these ones:

surfsolo.securstar.net – 67.225.141.74

surfsolo.securstar.com – 69.16.211.133

Frankly speaking I can easily understand that Mr. Hafner is going do whatever he can to protect his company from the scandal, but the “anonymous proxy” excuse is at the very least suspicious.

How does the fact that the “independent research” was semantically a product review of PhoneCrypt, along with the discovery that the author come from the SecurStar GmbH IP address offices, along with the anonymity of this Notrax guy (SecurStar calls him a “well known it security professional” in their press release..) sound to you?

It's possible that earth will get an attack from outer space that's going to destroy our life?

Statistically extremely difficult, but yes, possible. More or less like the “anonymous proxy” story told by Mr. Hafner to cover the fact that they are the ones behind the infosecurityguard.com fake “independent security review”.

Hey, I don't need anything else to convince myself or to let the smart person have his own thoughts on this.

I just think that the best way for SecurStar to get out of this mess would probably be to provide public excuses to the hacking community for abusing the name and reputation of real independent security researches, for the sake of a marketing stunt.

Saúdos,

Fabio Pietrosanti

ps I am currently waiting for some other infos that will more precisely confirm that what Mr. Hafner is saying is not properly true. Sexa Nós prestamos moita atención.

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Evidence that infosecurityguard.com/notrax is SecurStar GmbH Phonecrypt – A fake independent research on voice crypto

Below evidence that the security review made by an anonymous hacker on http://infosecurityguard.com is in facts a dishonest marketing plan by the SecurStar GmbH to promote their voice crypto product.

I already wrote about that voice crypto analysis that appeared to me very suspicious.

Now it's confirmed, it's a fake independent hacker security research by SecurStar GmbH, its just a marketing trick!

How do we know that Infosecurityguard.com, the fake independent security research, is a marketing trick from SecurStar GmbH?

1) I posted on http://infosecurityguard.com a comments to a post with a link to my blog to that article on israelian ministry of defense certification

2) The author of http://infosecurityguard.com went to approve the comment and read the link on my own blog https://infosecurity.ch

3) Reaching my blog he leaked the IP address from which he was coming 217.7.213.59 (where i just clicked on from wordpress statistic interface)

4) On http:// 217.7.213.59/panel there is the IP PBX interface of the SecurStar GmbH corporate PBX (openly reachable trough the internet!)

5) The names of the internal PBX confirm 100% that it's the SecurStar GmbH:

6) There is 100% evidence that the anonymous hacker of http://infosecurityguard.com is from SecurStar GmbH

Below the data and reference that let us discover that it's all but a dishonest marketing tips and not an independent security research.

Kudos to Matteo Flora for it's support and for his article in Debunking Infosecurityguard identity !

The http referral tricks

When you read a link going from a website to another one there is an HTTP protocol header, the “Referral”, that tell you from which page someone is going to another webpage.

The referral demonstrated that the authors of http://infosecurityguard.com read my post, because it was coming from http://infosecurityguard.com/wp-admin/edit-comments.php that's the webpage you use as a wordpress author/editor to approve/refuse comments. And here there was the link.

That's the log entry:

217.7.213.59 – - [30/Jan/2010:02:56:37 -0700] “GET /20100129/licensed-by-israel-ministry-of-defense-how-things-really-works/ HTTP/1.0″ 200 5795 “ http://infosecurityguard.com/wp-admin/edit-comments.php ” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; GTB6.3; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; InfoPath.2)”

The PBX open on the internet tell us that's SecurStar GmbH

The SecurStar GmbH PBX is open on the internet, it contains all the names of their employee and confirm us that the author of http:/infosecurityguard.com is that company and is the anonymous hacker called Notrax.

Here there is their forum post where the SecurStar GmbH guys are debugging IPCOPfirewall & Asterisk together (so we see also details of what they use) where there is the ip 217.7.213.59 .

SecurStarproof.png

That's also really fun!

They sell secure telephony but their company telephony system is openly vulnerable on the internet . :-)

I was thinking to call the CEO, Hafner, via SIP on his internal desktop PBX to announce we discovered him tricks.. :->

They measured their marketing activity

Looking at the logs of my website i found that they was sensing the google distribution of information for the following keywords, in order to understand how effectively they was able to attack competing products. It's reasonable, if you invest money in a marketing campaign you want to see the results :-)

They reached my blog and i logged their search:

infosecurityguard+cryptophone

infosecurityguard+gold-lock

217.7.213.59 – - [30/Jan/2010:02:22:42 -0700] “GET / HTTP/1.0″ 200 31057 “http://www.google.de/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4SKPB_enDE350DE350&q=infosecurityguard+cryptophone” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; GTB6.3; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; InfoPath.2)”

217.7.213.59 – - [30/Jan/2010:04:15:07 -0700] “GET /20100130/about-the-voice-encryption-analysis-phonecrypt-can-be-intercepted-serious-security-evaluation-criteria/ HTTP/1.0″ 200 15774 “http://www.google.de/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4SKPB_enDE350DE350&q=gold-lock+infosecurityguard” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; GTB6.3; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; InfoPath.2)”


The domain registration data

The domain have been registered on 1st December 2009, just two months to start preparing the dishonest marketing campaign:

Domain Name: INFOSECURITYGUARD.COM

Registrar: GODADDY.COM, INC.

Updated Date: 01-dec-2009

Creation Date: 01-dec-2009

The domain is anonymously privacy protected trough a whois privacy service:

Administrative Contact: Private, Registration INFOSECURITYGUARD.COM@domainsbyproxy.com , Domains by Proxy, Inc. DomainsByProxy.com

Notrax hacker does not exist on google
As you know any hacker that get public usually have presence of it's activity on google, attending mailinglists, forum, homepage, past research, participation to conferences, etc, etc.
The fake hacker that they wanted us to to think was writing an independent blog does NOT have any trace on google. Only some hit about an anonymous browser called Notrax but nothing about that hacker.
Maybe when SecurStar provided the anonymity tool to their marketing agency, to help them protecting anonymity for the fake research, their provided them the anonymous browser notrax.So the marketing guy thinking about the nickname of this fake hackers used what? Notrax! :-)

The “independent review”completely oriented in publicizing PhoneCrypt

Of the various review don the phonecrypt review is only positive and amazing good feedback, while the other are only bad feedback and no single good point.

As you can imagine, in any kind of independent product evaluation, for all products there are goods and bad points. No. In this one there are only product that are good and product that are bad.

They missed to consider the security of the technology used by the products

They completely avoided to speak about cryptography and security of the products.

They do not evaluated basic security features that must be in that kind of products.That's in order not to let anyone see that they did not followed basic security rules in building up their PhoneCrypt.
The technology is closed source, no transparency on algorithms and protocols, no peer review.Read my new comparison (from the basic cryptographic requirement point of view) About the voice encryption analysis (criteria, errors and different results) .
The results are somehow different than their one .

UPDATE: Who's Wilfried Hafner (SecurStar founder) ?

I got a notice from a reader regarding Wilfred Hafner, SecurStar founder, CEO and security expert.

He was arrested in 1997 for telephony related fraud (check 2nd article on Phrack) earning from telephony fraud 254.000 USD causing damages to local telcos trough blueboxing for 1.15 Million USD.

He was not doing “Blueboxing” for the pleasure of phreaking and connecting with other hackers, but to earn money.

Hacking for profit (and not for fun) in 1997… brrr…. No hacker's ethic at all!

All in all, is that lawful?

Badmouthing a competitor amounts to an unfair competition practice in most jurisdictions, so it is arguable (to say the least) that SecurStar is right on a legally sound ground here.
Moreover, there are some specific statutes in certain jurisdictions which provide for a straightforward ban on the practice we are talking about. For example in the UK the British Institute of Practitioners in Advertising - in compliance with the Consumer protection from Unfair Trading regulation – ruled that:

”falsely claiming or creating the impression that the trader is not acting for the purposes relating to his trade, business, craft or profession, or falsely representing oneself as a consumer” is a criminal offense .

We have no doubt that PRPR (which is the UK-based *PR company for SecurStar GmbH, led by Peter Rennison and Allie Andrews as stated in SecurStar Press Release ) did provide their client with this information. Heck, they *are* in the UK, they simply cannot ignore that!

IANAL, but I would not be surpised if someone filed a criminal complaint or start civil litigation for unfair competition against SecurStar GmbH.
Whether this is going to be a matter for criminal and/or civil Courts or not is not that important. However, it is clear enough that SecurStar GmbH appears to be at least ethically questionable and not really worth of trust.

Nice try, gentlemen… however, next time just do it right (whether “right” for them means “in a honest manner” or “in a fashion not to be caught” I will let them choose)”

Fabio Pietrosanti (naif)

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Dishonest security: The SecurStart GmbH Phonecrypt case

I would like to provide considerations on the concept of ethics that a security company should have respect to the users, the media and the security environment.

SecurStar GmbH made very bad things making that infosecuriguard.com fake independent research.

It's unfair approach respect to hacking community.

It's unfair marketing to end user. They should not be tricking by creating fake independent review.

It's unfair competition in the security market.

Let's make some more important consideration on this.

Must be serious on cryptographic products. They are not toys

When you do cryptographic tools you should be really aware of what you are doing, you must be really serious.

If you do bad crypto people could die.

If you don't follow basic security rules for transparency and security for cryptography you are putting people life at risk.

You are taking the responsibility of this. (I want to sleep at night, don't think SecurStar CEO/CTO care about this…)

Security research need reference and transparency

Security research have to be public, well done, always subject to public discussion and cooperation.
Security research should not be instrumentally used for marketing purpose.Security research should be done for awareness and grow of the knowledge of the worldwide security environment.

Hacking environment is neutral, should not be used instrumentally

Hackers are considered neutral, nerds, doing what they do for their pleasure and passion.

If you work in the security market you work with hackers.

If you use hackers and hacking environment for your own marketing purposes you are making something very nasty.

Hackers give you the technology and knowledge and you use them for your own commercial purpose.

Consideration on the authority of the information online

That's something that pose serious consideration on the authority of information online.An anonymous hacker, with no reference online, made a product security review that appear like an independent one. I have to say that the fake review was very well prepared, it always posed good/bad things in an indirect way. It did not appeared to me at 1st time like a fake. But going deeply i found what's going on.

However Journalists, news media and blogger went to the TRAP and reviewed their fake research. TheRegister, NetworkWorld and a lot of blogs reported it. Even if the author was completely anonymous.

What they have done is already illegal in UK

SecurStar GmbH is lucky that they are not in the UK, where doing this kind of things is illegal .

Fabio Pietrosanti (naif)

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About the SecurStar GmbH Phonecrypt voice encryption analysis (criteria, errors and different results)

This article want to clarify and better explain the finding at infosecurityguard.com regaring voice encryption product evaluation.
This article want to tell you a different point of view other than infosecurityguard.com and explaining which are the rational with extensive explaination from security point of view.
Today i read news saying: “PhoneCrypt: Basic Vulnerability Found in 12 out of 15 Voice Encryption Products and went to read the website infosecurityguard .

Initially it appeared to my like a great research activity but then i started reading deeply the read about it.I found that it's not properly a security research but there is are concrete elements that's a marketing campaign well done in order to attract public media and publicize a product.
Imho they was able to cheat journalists and users because the marketing campaign was absolutely well done not to be discovered on 1st read attempt. I personally considered it like a valid one on 1st ready (they cheated me initially!).

But if you go deeply… you will understand that:
- it's a camouflage marketing initiative arranged by SecurStar GmbH and not a independent security research
- they consider a only security context where local device has been compromised (no software can be secured in that case, like saying SSL can be compromised if you have a trojan!)
- they do not consider any basic security and cryptographic security criteria

However a lot of important website reported it:

This article is quite long, if you read it you will understand better what's going on around infosecurityguard.com research and research result.

I want to to tell you why and how (imho) they are wrong.

The research missed to consider Security, Cryptography and Transparency!

Well, all this research sound much like being focused on the marketing goal to say that their PhoneCrypt product is the “super” product best of all the other ones.
Any security expert that would have as duty the “software evaluation” in order to protect the confidentiality of phone calls will evaluate other different characteristics of the product and the technology.

Yes, it's true that most of the product described by SecurStar in their anonymous marketing website called http://infosecurityguard.com have some weakness.
But the relevant weakness are others and PhoneCrypt unfortunately, like most of the described products suffer from this.
Let's review which characteristics are needed basic cryptography and security requirement (the best practice, the foundation and the basics!)

a – Security Trough Obscurity does not work

A basic rule in cryptography cames from 1883 by Auguste Kerckhoffs:

In a well-designed cryptographic system, only the key needs to be secret; there should be no secrecy in the algorithm.
Modern cryptographers have embraced this principle, calling anything else “security by obscurity.”
Read what Bruce Schneir, recognized expert and cryptographer in the world say about this
Any security expert will tell you that's true. Even a novice university student will tell you that's true. Simply because that's the only way to do cryptography.
Almost all product described in the review by SecurStar GmbH, include PhoneCrypt, does not provide precise details about their cryptographic technologies.
Precise details are:
  • Detailed specification of cryptographic algorithm (that's not just saying “we use AES “)
  • Detailed specification of cryptographic protocol (that's not just saying “we use Diffie Hellman ” )
  • Detailed specification of measuring the cryptographic strenght (that's not just saying “we have 10000000 bit key size “)

Providing precise details means having extensive documentation with theoretical and practical implications documenting ANY single way of how the algorithm works, how the protocol works with precise specification to replicate it for interoperability testing.
It means that scientific community should be able to play with the technology, audit it, hack it.
If we don't know anything about the cryptographic system in details, how can we know which are the weakness and strength points?

Mike Fratto, Site editor of Network Computing, made a great article on “Saying NO to proprietary cryptographic systems” .
Cerias Purdue University tell this .

b – NON peer reviewed and NON scientifically approved Cryptography does not work

In any case and in any condition you do cryptography you need to be sure that someone else will check, review, analyze, distruct and reconstract from scratch your technology and provide those information free to the public for open discussion.
That's exactly how AES was born and like US National Institute of Standard make crypto does (with public contest with public peer review where only the best evaluated win).
A public discussion with a public contest where the a lot of review by most famous and expert cryptographer in the world, hackers (with their name,surname and face, not like Notrax) provide their contribution, tell what they thinks.
That's called “peer review”.

If a cryptographic technology has an extended and important peer review, distributed in the world coming from universities, private security companies, military institutions, hackers and all coming from different part of the world (from USA to Europe to Russia to South America to Middle east to China) and all of them agree that a specific technology it's secure…
Well, in that case we can consider the technology secure because a lot of entities with good reputation and authority coming from a lot of different place in the world have publicly reviewed, analyzed and confirmed that a technology it's secure.

Como unha empresa privada pode sequera pensar en inventar, por si mesma un protocolo de comunicación segura cando está cientificamente afirmou que non é posible facelo nun "camiño propio e pechado"?
IBM di que revisión por pares é imprescindible para o cifrado .
Bruce Schneier dicirlle que "Bos criptógrafos saben que nada substitúe a extensa revisión por pares e anos de análise."
Philip Zimmermann ha dicir-lle para tomar coidado con Snake Oil , onde a historia é: "Cada enxeñeiro de software se imaxina un criptógrafo, o que levou á proliferación de software de cifrado moi malo."

c - cifrado fonte pechado non funciona

Como vostede sabe de calquera tipo de "serio" e con "boa reputación" tecnoloxía de criptografía é aplicada en opensource.
There are usually multiple implementation of the same cryptographic algorithm and cryptographic protocol to be able to review all the way it works and certify the interoperability.
Supposing to use a standard with precise and extended details on “how it works”, that has been “peer reviewed” by the scientific community BUT that has been re-implemented from scratch by a not so smart programmer and the implementation it's plenty of bugs.

Well, if the implementation is “opensource” this means that it can be reviewed, improved, tested, audited and the end user will certaintly have in it's own had a piece of technology “that works safely” .

Google release opensource crypto toolkit
Mozilla release opensource crypto toolkit
Bruce Schneier tell you that Cryptography must be opensource .

Another cryptographic point of view

I don't want to convince anyone but just provide facts related to science, related to cryptography and security in order to reduce the effect of misinformation done by security companies whose only goes is to sell you something and not to do something that make the world a better.

When you do secure products, if they are not done following the proper approach people could die.
It's absolutely something irresponsible not to use best practice to do crypto stuff.

To summarize let's review the infosecurityguard.com review from a security best pratice point of view.

Product name Security Trough Obscurity Public peer review Open Source Compromise locally?
Caspertec Obscurity No public review Closed Si
CellCrypt Obscurity
No public review
Closed
Si
Cryptophone Transparency Limited public review Public Si
Gold-Lock Obscurity
No public review
Closed
Si
Illix Obscurity
No public review
Closed
Si
No1.BC Obscurity No public review
Closed
Si
PhoneCrypt Obscurity
No public review
Closed
Si
Rode&Swarz Obscurity
No public review
Closed
Si
Secure-Voice Obscurity
No public review
Closed
Si
SecuSmart Obscurity
No public review
Closed
Si
SecVoice Obscurity
No public review
Closed
Si
SegureGSM Obscurity
No public review
Closed
Si
SnapCell Obscurity
No public review
Closed
Si
Tripleton Obscurity
No public review
Closed
Si
Zfone Transparency Public review
Open Si
ZRTP Transparency Public review
Open Si

*Green means that it match basic requirement for a cryptographic secure system

* Red / medio rotos que non corresponden requisito básico para un sistema seguro de cifrado
Esa é a miña análise utilizando un método de valoración baseado en criptografía e parámetros de seguridade non incluíndo o contexto compromiso local que eu considero inútil.

Con todo, para ser claro, estes son só os parámetros básicos que debe empregar cando se considera un produto de cifrado de voz (só para evitar estar nunha situación que aparece como eu estou promovendo outros produtos). Por iso, pode absolutamente posible que un produto con boa Crypto (transparencia, revisados ​​e opensource) é absolutamente un produto non é seguro debido a calquera motivo (mal escrito, non utilizable causando usuario non usalo e utilizar chamadas de texto normal, politicamente comprometido, etc , etc.)
Creo que vou preparar un criterio máis amplo de tecnoloxías de cifrado de voz e produtos de cifrado de voz, de xeito que sería moito máis fácil e máis práctico ter un conxunto transparente cheo de criterios para valora-lo.

Pero estes son realmente a base da seguridade de ser acompañado por un bo sistema de cifrado de voz!
Ler algúns diapositivas pasados ​​útil sobre protocolos de seguridade utilizados en sistemas de cifrado de voz (2 ª parte).

Agora lea a continuación algunhas dúbidas máis prácticas sobre as súas investigacións.

O concepto de revisión de seguridade é erro: calquera dispositivo invadido sempre pode ser interceptado!

Eu creo que as faces perdeu completamente o punto: calquera tipo de software rodando en un sistema operativo comprometido poden interceptadas

Agora, están a apuntar que tamén Zfone de Philip Zimmermann está roto (o software PC), só porque instalar un trojan no PC como nun móbil?
Calquera software de seguridade de contar co feito de que o sistema operativo subxacente é dalgunha forma fiable e preservar a integridade do ambiente onde o software executado.

  • Se tes un sistema de cifrado de disco, pero o seu PC infectado por un trojan, o ordenador xa está comprometida.
  • Se tes un sistema de cifrado de voz, pero o seu ordenador está infectado por un trojan, o ordenador xa está comprometida.
  • Se tes un sistema de cifrado de voz, o teu teléfono está infectado por un trojan, o móbil xa está comprometida.

Non importa o software está executando, en tal caso, a seguridade do seu contorno operativo está comprometida e, dun xeito ou doutro xeito toda a integridade da información ea confidencialidade está comprometida.

Cómo expliquei anteriormente como interceptar PhoneCrypt.

As únicas cousas que poden protexe-lo contra esta ameaza está en execución nun sistema operativo pechado con capacidade de computación Trust, implementar la correctamente.
Seguramente en calquera "Open" do sistema operativo, como nos Windows, Windows Mobile, Linux, iPhone ou Android non hai ningunha oportunidade de realmente protexer un programa.
O sistema operativo difícil, como Symbian VOS ou rimos quizais o programa en execución pode ser protexido (polo menos parcialmente)

That's the reason for which the security concept that guys are leveraging to carry on their marketing campaign has no clue.
It's just because they control the environment, they know Flexispy software and so they adjusted their software not to be interceptable when Flexispy is installed.
If you develop a trojan with the other techniques i described above you will 100% intercept PhoneCrypt.

On that subject also Dustin Tamme l, Security researcher of BreakPoint Systems , pointed on on VoIP Security Alliance mailing lists that the security analysis is based on wrong concepts .

The PhoneCrypt can be intercepted: it's just that they don't wanted to tell you!

PhoneCrypt can be intercepted with “on device spyware”.
Por que?
Because Windows Mobile is an unsecure operating environment and PhoneCrypt runs on Windows Mobile.
Windows Mobile does not use Trusted Computing and so any software can do anything.
The platform choice for a secure telephony system is important.
How?
I quickly discussed with some knowledgeable windows mobile hackers about 2 different way to intercept PhoneCrypt with an on-device spyware (given the unsecure Windows Mobile Platform).

a) Inject a malicious DLL into the software and intercept from within the Phonecrypt itself.
In Windows Mobile any software can be subject to DLL code injection.
What an attacker can do is to inject into the PhoneCrypt software (or any software running on the phone), hooking the Audio related functions acting as a “function proxy” between the PhoneCrypt and the real API to record/play audio.
It's a matter of “hooking” only 2 functions, the one that record and the one that play audio.
Read the official Microsoft documentation on how to do DLL injection on Windows Mobile processes. or forum discussing the technique of injecting DLL on windows mobile processes.
That's simple, any programmer will tell you to do so.
They simply decided that's better not to make any notice about this.
b) Create a new audio driver that simply act as a proxy to the real one and intercept PhoneCrypt
In Windows Mobile you can create new Audio Drivers and new Audio Filters.
What an attacker can do is to load a new audio driver that does not do anything else than passing the real audio driver function TO/FROM the realone. In the meantime intercept everything recorded and everything played :-)
Here there is an example on how to do Audio driver for Windows Mobile .
Here a software that implement what i explain here for Windows “Virtual Audio Cable” .
The very same concept apply to Windows Mobile. Check the book “Mobile Malware Attack and Defense” at that link explaining techniques to play with those techniques.
They simply decided that's better not to make any notice to that way of intercepting phone call on PhoneCrypt .
Those are just 2 quick ideas, more can be probably done.

Sounds much like a marketing activity – Not a security research.

Teño que che dicir. I analyzed the issue very carefully and on most aspects. All this things about the voice encryption analisys sounds to me like a marketing campaign of SecurStar GmbH to sell PhoneCrypt and gain reputation. A well articulated and well prepared campaign to attract the media saying, in an indirect way cheating the media, that PhoneCrypt is the only one secure. You see the press releases of SecurStar and of the “Security researcher Notrax telling that PhoneCrypt is the only secure product” . SecurStar PhoneCrypt is the only product the anonymous hacker “Notrax” consider secure of the “software solutions”.
The only “software version” in competition with:

– SnapCell – No one can buy it. A security company that does not even had anymore a webpage. The company does not almost exist anymore.
– rohde-schawarz – A company that have in his list price and old outdated hardware secure phone . No one would buy it, it's not good for genera use.

Does it sounds strange that only those other products are considered secure along with PhoneCrypt .

Also… let's check the kind of multimedia content in the different reviews available of Gold-Lock, Cellcrypt and Phonecrypt in order to understand how much the marketing guys pressed to make the PhoneCrypt review the most attractive:

Application Screenshots of application Video with demonstration of interception Network demonstration
PhoneCrypt 5 0 1
CellCrypt 0 2 0
GoldLock 1 2 0

It's clear that PhoneCrypt is reviewed showing more features explicitly shown and major security features product description than the other.

Too much difference between them, should we suspect it's a marketing tips?

But again other strange things analyzing the way it was done…
If it was “an impartial and neutral review” we should see good and bad things on all the products right?

Ok, see the table below regarding the opinion indicated in each paragraph of the different reviews available of Gold-Lock, CellCrypt and Phonecrypt (are the only available) to see if are positive or negative.

Application Number of paragraphs Positive paragraphs Negative paragraphs Neutral paragraphs
PhoneCrypt 9 9 0 0
CellCrypt 12 0 10 2
GoldLock 9 0 8 1

Detailed paragraphs opinion analysis of Phonecrypt
Paragraph of review Opinion expressed
From their website Positive Marketing feedback
Apple iPhone Positive Marketing feedback
Disk Encryption or voice Encryption Positive Marketing feedback
PBX Compatibility? Really Positive Marketing feedback
Cracking <10. Not. Positive Marketing feedback
Ben pensado! Positive Marketing feedback
A little network action Positive Marketing feedback
UI Positive Marketing feedback
Good Taste Positive Marketing feedback
Detailed paragraphs opinion analysis of Gold-Lock 3G
Paragraph of review Opinion expressed
From their website Negative Marketing feedback
Licensed by The israeli Ministry of Denfese Negative Marketing feedback
Real Company or Part Time hobby Negative Marketing feedback
16.000 bit authentication Negative Marketing feedback
DH 256 Negative Marketing feedback
Downad & Installation! Neutral Marketing feedback
Cracking it <10 Negative Marketing feedback
Marketing BS101 Negative Marketing feedback
Cool video stuff Negative Marketing feedback
Detailed paragraphs opinion analysis of CellCrypt
Paragraph of review Opinion expressed
From their website Neutral Marketing feedback
A little background about cellcrypt Negative Marketing feedback
Master of Marketing Negative Marketing feedback
Secure Voice calling Negative Marketing feedback
Who's buying their wares Negative Marketing feedback
Downad & Installation! Neutral Marketing feedback
My Demo environment Negative Marketing feedback
Did they forget some code Negative Marketing feedback
Cracking it <5 Negative Marketing feedback
Room Monitoring w/ FlexiSpy Negative Marketing feedback
Cellcrypt unique features.. Negative Marketing feedback
Plain old interception Negative Marketing feedback
The Haters out there Negative Marketing feedback

Now it's clear that from their point of view on PhoneCrypt there is no single bad point while the other are always described in a negative way.
No single good point. Strange?
All those considerations along with the next ones really let me think that's very probably a marketing review and not an independent review.

Other similar marketing attempt from SecurStar

SecurStar GmbH is known to have used in past marketing activity leveraging this kind of “technical speculations”, abusing of partial information and fake unconfirmed hacking stuff to make marketing/media coverage.
Imho a rare mix of unfairness in leveraging the difficult for people to really understand the complexity of security and cryptography.

They already used in past Marketing activities like the one about creating a trojan for Windows Mobile and saying that their software is secure from the trojan that they wrote.
Read about their marketing tricks of 2007

They developed a Trojan (RexSpy) for Windows Mobile, made a demonstration capability of the trojan and later on told that they included “Anti-Trojan” capability to their PhoneCrypt software.They never released informations on that trojan, not even proved that it exists.

The researcher Collin Mulliner told at that time that it sounds like a marketing tips (also because he was not able to get from SecurStar CEO Hafner any information about that trojan):

“This makes you wonder if this is just a marketing thing.”

Now, let's try to make some logical reassignment.
It's part of the way they do marketing, an very unfriendly and unpolite approach with customers, journalist and users trying to provide wrong security concepts for a market advantage. Being sure that who read don't have all the skills to do in depth security evaluation and find the truth behind their marketing trips.

Who is the hacker notrax?

It sounds like a camouflage of a fake identity required to have an “independent hacker” that make an “independent review” that is more strong on reputation building.
Read about his bio:

¾ Human, ¼ Android (Well that would be cool at least.) I am just an enthusiast of pretty much anything that talks binary and if it has a RS232 port even better. During the day I masquerade as an engineer working on some pretty cool projects at times, but mostly I do the fun stuff at night. I have been thinking of starting an official blog for about 4.5 years to share some of the things I come across, can't figure out, or just cross my mind. Due to my day job and my nighttime meddling, I will update this when I can. I hope some find it useful, if you don't, well you don't.

There are no information about this guy on google.
Almost any hacker that get public have articles online, post in mailing archive and/or forum or some result of their activity.
For notrax, nothing is available.

Additionally let's look at the domain…
The domain infosecurityguard.com is privacy protected by domainsbyproxy to prevent understanding who is the owner.
The domain has been created 2 months ago on 01-Dec-09 on godaddy.com registrar.

What's also very interesting to notice that this “unknown hacker with no trace on google about him that appeared on December 2009 on the net” is referred on SecurStar GmbH Press Release as a “An IT security expert”.

Maybe they “know personally” who's this anonymous notrax? :)

Am i following my own conspiracy thinking or maybe there's some reasonable doubt that everything was arrange in that funny way just for a marketing activity?

Social consideration

If you are a security company you job have also a social aspects, you should also work to make the world a better place (sure to make business but “not being evil”). You cannot cheat the skills of the end users in evaluating security making fake misleading information.

You should do awareness on end users, to make them more conscious of security issues, giving them the tools to understand and decide themselves.

Hope you had fun reading this article and you made your own consideration about this.

Fabio Pietrosanti (naif)

ps Those are my personal professional opinion, let's speak about technology and security, not marketing.
pps i am not that smart in web writing, so sorry for how the text is formatted and how the flow of the article is unstructured!

Acción

Licensed by Israel Ministry of Defense? How things really works!

Ten que saber que Israel é un país onde se unha empresa ten para desenvolver produtos de cifrado deben ser autorizadas polo goberno.

O goberno non quere que as empresas que fan o cifrado pode facer nada de malo para eles e que poden facer de bo para o goberno, entón ten que primeiro ser autorizado.

Empresas prestadoras de interceptación e encryptio nm Ust aplicar a unha licenza, porque a lei israelí sobre iso é tan restritiva para ser semellante a lei china .

Porque este tipo de tecnoloxías por ser fundamentais para as capacidades de intelixencia e espionaxe do país Israel.

Para dar algúns exemplos de empresas "licenza polo Ministerio de Defensa de Israel":

Productos de cifrado GSM "licenza por Israel Ministerio de Defensa" - Gold-bloqueo

Secuestro de produtos de comunicación "licenza por Israel Ministerio de Defensa" - Verint

HF cifrado Radio "Licenciado por Israel Ministerio de Defensa" - Kavit

Servizos e equipamentos "Licenciado por Israel Ministerio de Defensa" vixilancia - Solucións multi Nivel

Por exemplo, como aplicar a unha "licenza por Israel Ministerio de Defensa" se fai tecnoloxías de cifrado en Israel?

Asegúrese de ser unha empresa israelí, prema aquí e enche os formularios.

Alguén entrará en contacto con vostede desde encryption-control@mod.gov.il e vai discutir con vostede a darlle ou non a licenza para vender.

What does the department of defense will require from an israeli company in order to provide them the authorization to make and sell interception and encryption products?

Well, what they want and what they really ask nobody knows.

It's a secret dealing of Israel Ministry of Defense with each “licensed” company.

What we know for sure is that Verint, a “Licensed by Israel Ministry of Defense”, placed a backdoor to intercept companies and governments in the US and Netherland into the interception systems they was selling.

Verint, a Licensed by Israel Ministry of Defense Company, provided to Israel government eavesdropped communications of private and government users in the United States and in the Netherland .

CIA officier reported that Israel Ministry of Defense was known to pay Verint a reimbursement of 50% of their costs in order to have from Verint espionage services trough their commercial activity on selling “backdoored” interception equipment to spy foreign users.

It can be a legitimate doubt that the cooperation within the Israeli Ministry of Defense may be problematic for an Israeli company that want to sell interception and encryption product abroad.

Those companies may be forced to make the interests of Israel Ministry of Defense and not the interests of the customers (like Verint scandal is a real-world example).

So, how would a “Licensed by Israel Ministry of Defense” be a good things to promote?

It represent the risk that the “Israel Ministry of Defense”, like is publicly known that it has already have done with Verint, will interfere with what the company do.

It represent the risk that the “Israel Ministry of Defense” may reasonably provide “reimbursement” of costs paying the company and get what they would likely would like to get.

So, what does really “Israel Ministry of Defense” want from Israel companies doing encryption and interception technologies?

Should we ask ourself whether Israeli companies doing encryption and interception businesses are more interested to do business or to do “outsourced espionage services” for their always paying customer, the “Israel Ministry of Defense”.

For sure, in the age of financial crisis, the Israel Ministry of Defense is a paying customer that does not have budget problem…

Strict control, strict rules, strong government strategic and military cooperation.

Be careful.

If you want to read more about this matters, about how technologies from certain countries is usually polluted with their governments military and secret services strategies stay tuned as i am preparing a post about this .

You will much better understand about that subjects on the “Licensed by Israel Ministry of Defense”.

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Gold-Lock Security Encryption Contest: be careful!

This post is to talk about the “unfair” marketing approach of Gold-Lock, an israeli company doing mobile voice encryption authorized by Israeli Ministry of Defence .

Following an announcement seen on Linkedin “Information Security Community” group:

GoldLock is offering US$ 100.000 and a job for an unencryption

GoldLock, an israeli encryption and security company is offering US$ 100.000 and a job to anyone capable to decrypt a cellular conversation contained in a file provided in their site ( https://www.gold-lock.com/app/en/?wicket:interface=:8 ::::).
The transcription must be sent back to GoldLock until February 1st, 2010.
The contest is open to all and any tools or technology may be used.
Good luck to all!!!

I commented:

Not having a public protocol specification is not even scientifically serious to make a marketing tricks like this.
I would say to gold-lock, let's release the source code and let anyone compile the cryptographic engine if you trust not to to have something nasty inside… ;)

Toni Koivunen from F-secure said:

So… They will pay $100k if you get through the AES and the hassle with keys.
If someone would pull it off they would certainly make a truckload more money elsewhere. Plus they would retain the rights to the code/technology that they created, which isn't the case if they go for the $100k since the License pretty clearly says that:
# An assignment letter to Gold Line, in a form satisfactory to Gold Line of your technology and the Work Plan (the “Technology”). Such assignment form shall enable Gold Line to transfer the rights on the Technology to Gold Line, including the right to register patents and all other rights.
# A release and waiver form, in a form satisfactory to Gold Line, duly executed by you and any other participant of any rights to the Technology.
Plus of course Gold Line retains the right to change the rules of the game with prior notice. Or needing to notify afterwards either.
Sounds fair :)

Michel Scovetta from Computer Associates said:

It sounds like the purpose of this is to get some cheap testing out of it, and to be able to say something like, “The best crypto experts in the world tried to break it, and were unable to.”

According to some of the docs on Gold Lock's website, they use ECC-256 and a “modified DH key exchange” (which tingles my spidey senses), SHA-256, and then XOR for the actual data encryption. They use practically blasphemous language like, “Each component of the Gold Lock Enterprise solution is tested and proven secure against any conceivable attack.”

*Proven* secure? *Any conceivable* attack? Caramba!

In another doc on their site, they talk about their first layer relying on 1024-bit RSA. GoDaddy doesn't even allow 1024-bit keys to be used anymore when generating $20 SSL certificates. They quote 300 billion MIPS-years to break, but if my math is correct, that comes down to about 52 days on the top supercomputer right now. Not trivial, but this is an offline attack, so time is on the side of the attacker.

The description then talks about the device generating 16k keys when you register the device. If the protocol is “secure”, then it should be “secure” with only a single key. If it's not secure with a single key, then generating 16k keys could only make it 16k times more secure, which is far off from a proof of security.

I agree with Fabio – a fair contest would be to include source code and the cryptographic specification. Also, as other contests have proven (eg SecureWebMail), the weakest point isn't usually the cryptography. It's all of the other stuff, and it doesn't look like any of it is being disclosed for the contest.

http://xkcd.com/538/

Mike

I would say that all those considerations from security experts from well known and established security companies bring us to consider that:

  • Gold-lock is not transparent on their encryption at all and they work trough bad practice of Security Trough Obscurity (no one know what's inside the product)
  • Gold-lock is not playing a fair game by proposing this 'security contest'
  • Gold-lock being certified by Israeli ministry of defence may raise doubt related to possible relationship with the intelligence… Read by post Certified by Israeli MInistry of Defense .

Voice security is a sensible matters and lacks of transparency and governmental relationship for cryptographic choices usually does not provide anything good…

Think about it…

Acción

Political conflict in Turkey between Prosecutors and Wiretappers

It seems that in Turkey the Telecommunication Directorate (TIB), in charge of managing the wiretapping, intercepted the president of the Judge and Prosecutors Associations.

Prosecutors and Judge usually does not like being tapped, and so the 1st High Criminal Court ordered an audit of all the recording done by the TIB since 2006.

Read more here .

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Voice encryption in government sectors

I will make some in depth articles about how voice encryption really works in government environments.

The open standards and open source still have to reach the military and government environments for what's related to secure speech.

To give you an idea of the complexity and kind of particular issues that exists, look at the USA 3G Wireless Security: A Government Perspective and the A Waveform Architecture to Support Security and Interoperability in Multi-National Wireless Networks for Tactical Communication .

They are using so-custom protocols like Secure Communications Interoperability Protocol that require the use of patented MELPe ultra-narrowband codec that there's not a real market of application and equipment using this. Only a small elite of government controlled companies from few countries manage this de-facto lobby.

Should we change this bringing open standards also to government sectors?

Acción

How the various audio compression codec sounds?

You know, we would not be able to use VoIP and have cheap international phone calls without audio compression codecs.

It's plenty of them, some royalty free, some patented by telco's lobby (think that some patented and royalty-based codec it's also a standard, where all market player have to pay the most aggressive one that acquired the patent while defining the standards).

However, there is a nice collection from vocal , to understand how they sounds.

Acción