[108144] in Cypherpunks
Re: FUD attack WAS:AUCRYPTO: New attack on PGP keys with a Word Macro
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jean-Francois Avon)
Sat Feb 6 15:10:19 1999
From: "Jean-Francois Avon" <jf_avon@citenet.net>
To: <aucrypto@suburbia.net>, <cypherpunks@toad.com>,
"Bill Stewart" <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 14:26:27 -0500
Reply-To: "Jean-Francois Avon" <jf_avon@citenet.net>
-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
To: Jean-Francois Avon <jf_avon@citenet.net>; aucrypto@suburbia.net
<aucrypto@suburbia.net>; cypherpunks@toad.com <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Date: Saturday, February 06, 1999 3:53 AM
Subject: Re: FUD attack WAS:AUCRYPTO: New attack on PGP keys with a Word
Macro
>At 12:58 PM 2/5/99 -0500, Jean-Francois Avon wrote:
>>This message is quite funny by it's implication.
>>What protects the secret RSA key is IDEA encryption (well, on 2.x.x
>>versions...). If the secret key protection can get cracked, then, one can
>>say that they could break the one-time IDEA key for each message.
>RSA isn't encryption-only - it also does signatures, and PGP uses it
>for signing keys with.
The essence of my comment was to the effect that the original message
allegations imply that RSA or IDEA was decently easily crackable. To read
messages, sign a message with a secret key, or to sign another key, you
have to break the IDEA protected RSA key.
Of course, single word passphrases are not cryptographically strong, but
what about proper passphrases? I still think that this message is some sort
of FUD operation. Otherwise, he would have pointed out the importance of
using proper passphrases and put their use in context.
As somebody else pointed out, getting your keyring can bust anonymity in
the case one use a nym private key. I always thought that PGP should have
multiple keyring handling and keyring encryption capabilities built in and
systematically encouraged.
Ciao
jfa, living around Montreal, Canada.
