OT: IM encryption options [was: Re: Is the OpenPGP model still useful?]

Marcio B. Jr. marcio.barbado at gmail.com
Sat Jul 23 19:19:53 CEST 2011


Hi Aron,
you are somewhat arrogant.

Please read what I wrote till completion.


Regards,



On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 9:17 PM, Aaron Toponce <aaron.toponce at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 07:56:42PM -0300, Marcio B. Jr. wrote:
>> Hello Daniel,
>> sorry for such a delay; this has been a wild JULY.
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 4:09 PM, Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote:
>> > On 07/06/2011 01:28 PM, Marcio B. Jr. wrote:
>> >> So far, OTR adoption seems unjustifiable, really. I mean, it uses the
>> >> Diffie-Hellman key exchange method with block ciphers.
>> >
>> > Why does this seem unjustifiable to you?  DH and block ciphers are
>> > widely-reviewed parts of the standard crypto toolkit.  Do you have
>> > reason to believe they're generally bad?
>>
>> It seems unjustifiable because there exists an option in which secret
>> keys need not to take risks. And if there's any security concern and
>> one's to choose between zero risk and any other positive-value risk,
>> it's reasonable to pick the former.
>
> Are you familiar with the DH key exchange? It doesn't seem that you are.
> There is no risk in sharing the private key between the two parties. It
> basically goes like this:
>
> Step 1: A generates the private key.
> Step 2: A encrypts the private key with a one-time session key.
> Step 3: A sends the encrypted private key to B.
> Step 4: B encrypts the encrypted private key with his 1-time key.
> Step 5: B sends the doubly-encrypted private key to A.
> Step 6: A decrypts what he can with his one-time session key.
> Step 7: A sends the resulting encrypted key to B.
> Step 8: B decrypts the private key with his 1-time key.
>
> B now has the private key.
>
> The one-time session keys are never shared, but stored locally on the
> machine. Once the DH key exchange finished, the session keys are destroyed.
> No where in the exchange is there any risk of the private key being
> compromised. A MITM can grab all the packets he likes. Unless he has one or
> both session keys, he's not getting the private key.
>
> --
> . o .   o . o   . . o   o . .   . o .
> . . o   . o o   o . o   . o o   . . o
> o o o   . o .   . o o   o o .   o o o
>
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>



Marcio Barbado, Jr.



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