On Fri, 2012-10-12 at 16:52 -0400, Michael Gilbert wrote: > On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 4:45 PM, Christoph Anton Mitterer wrote: > > I wasn't talking about such an impossible task,... but there speaks > > nothing against relatively easy things,... like securing all of our > > package repository infrastructure by strong algos (as we already did)... > > and trying to prevent higher level attacks, like downgrade attacks. > Do you have evidence of any of those things? Well as I said previously, in security one should usually not try to only take measures against things one can identify as a problem right now. Especially if there's no considerable disadvantage, then I see no good reason for not using the strongest (in this specific example) hash algorithms available. Now the argument some people threw in, that debsums should stay at MD5 to already hint that it shouldn't be used for intrusion detection: - It's much better than to clearly document that this shouldn't be used in that way (which is already done)... and then use a algo that provides a good trade off between speed and hash quality (MD5 might be just that...). - I still think that one may build up a system using debsums that is equally secure than what AIDE and friends do. At least I see no reason speaking against. > If so, please submit > bugs, and we will look at fixing them. Otherwise, speculation gets us > nowhere and actually wastes time. Well I had once a discussion (around March this year) here about blockin/downgrade attacks... which, AFAICS, both are possible in secure APT right now.... but there was no real outcome. Unforunately it seems that people do not take these higher-level attacks really serious.... even though the danger they impose is quite high. Cheers, Chris.
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