Gentoo Archives: gentoo-nfp

From: Andrew Savchenko <bircoph@g.o>
To: gentoo-nfp@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-nfp] Developer Crypto Hardware (AGM)
Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2018 23:26:46
Message-Id: 20180821022638.4c0246b32041729c4fa36c55@gentoo.org
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-nfp] Developer Crypto Hardware (AGM) by Alec Warner
1 On Mon, 20 Aug 2018 16:57:52 -0400 Alec Warner wrote:
2 > On Mon, Aug 20, 2018 at 4:27 PM, Kristian Fiskerstrand <k_f@g.o>
3 > wrote:
4 >
5 > > On 08/20/2018 10:18 PM, Alec Warner wrote:
6 > > > Are there other ways to measure if the keys are used in the manner we are
7 > > > hoping for?
8 > >
9 > > Nope... additional complexity arise if multiple signing keys exists
10 > > (primary or subkeys), and furthermore there is no guarantee the key is
11 > > stored on key only.
12 > >
13 >
14 > > That said, the actual security is even further muddied by operational
15 > > security concerns regarding how the primary key is accessed even in the
16 > > event signing subkey is on card only.. and other security precations
17 > > required by the developers for the token to have any meaningful addition
18 > > to security as an attacker can anyways just wait for it to be be
19 > > available, in particular if not mandating forcesig on the openpgp applet
20 > > and counting the number of signatures manually to detect abnormalities.
21 > >
22 >
23 > I assert that the hardware token, when the key is stored only in the token
24 > and not in another place online, prevents export of key material.
25
26 No, it doesn't. The cost of extracting a key from a stolen token is
27 approximately $1000 depending on a token model.
28
29 The problem is that people are considering a token as a silver
30 bullet protecting them reliably. While protection will be indeed
31 improved a bit, this is all the gain; and relaxed state of false
32 security may prove to be more dangerous than not to have tokens at
33 all.
34
35 Best regards,
36 Andrew Savchenko

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