[39888] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: 'we should all be uncomfortable with the extent to which luck ..'
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Shaw)
Wed Jul 25 20:30:54 2001
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 20:30:01 -0400
From: David Shaw <dshaw@jabberwocky.com>
To: "Majdi S. Abbas" <msa@samurai.sfo.dead-dog.com>
Cc: nanog@merit.edu
Message-ID: <20010725203001.A639@akamai.com>
Mail-Followup-To: "Majdi S. Abbas" <msa@samurai.sfo.dead-dog.com>,
nanog@merit.edu
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In-Reply-To: <20010725140944.A28671@samurai.sfo.dead-dog.com>; from msa@samurai.sfo.dead-dog.com on Wed, Jul 25, 2001 at 02:09:44PM -0700
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On Wed, Jul 25, 2001 at 02:09:44PM -0700, Majdi S. Abbas wrote:
>
> On Wed, Jul 25, 2001 at 02:45:44PM -0400, David Shaw wrote:
> > telnetd is not inherently bad. It is a tool that is lacking the
> > session encryption and strong authentication features of SSH, but is
> > still useful in some cases. Like any tool it can be used poorly, but
> > that is not the fault of the tool.
>
> Agreed.
>
> > For example, when traveling, I can log in securely from any random
> > Internet cafe using OPIE or S/Key one-time passwords via telnet. SSH
> > requires that you trust your local machine, and OPIE assumes that you
> > don't.
>
> Incorrect. OPIE assumes complete trust of your local machine,
> but not the network. You still have to generate the hashes using your
> password.
Not at all. You don't have to generate the hashes on your local
machine. Most people using OPIE (or any one-time password scheme)
have a hardware device (i.e. Palm Pilot) to calculate the hashes. As
you say, it would be rather silly to calculate the hashes on the
untrusted machine!
David
--
David Shaw | dshaw@jabberwocky.com | WWW http://www.jabberwocky.com/
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"There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX.
We don't believe this to be a coincidence." - Jeremy S. Anderson
