Re: [OpenID] OpenID/Debian PRNG/DNS Cache poisoning advisory

[Peter Williams <pwilliams () rapattoni com>]

It did seem strange that openid was singled out. The publicity will be only beneficial, however. Openid had no 
pretentions to grandeur in the higher assurance arena, of course. Now it getting more relevant, of course increasing 
relevancy now begs the question: should that stance continue? Who wants to rely on openid for blog spamming protection 
or antiphishing (both claims made about openid) if they don't really work!

________________________________
From: Eddy Nigg (StartCom Ltd.) <eddy_nigg () startcom org>
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2008 3:30 PM
To: Ben Laurie <benl () google com>
Cc: security () openid net <security () openid net>; full-disclosure () lists grok org uk <full-disclosure () lists 
grok org uk>; bugtraq () securityfocus com <bugtraq () securityfocus com>; OpenID List <general () openid net>; 
cryptography () metzdowd com <cryptography () metzdowd com>
Subject: Re: [OpenID] OpenID/Debian PRNG/DNS Cache poisoning advisory

Ben Laurie:


If you have a better forum, bring it on.

However, CAs do not have everything at their disposal to remove the
threat. Browsers,OpenID libraries and RPs must also participate.


Yes! First of all you've got the dev.tech.crypto mailing list at Mozilla where this issue has been discussed with the 
partition of various CAs including us (StartCom), Verisign, Comodo and some others. As a result of this discussion, 
StartCom revoked all affected keys after notifying the subscribers, Verisign and Comodo scanned and pinged all affected 
subscribers and may have revoked subscriber keys (not sure about the latter, but Comodo reserved the right to do so, 
not sure if they actually did). The list is at https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-tech-crypto

Another good forum might be the CA/Browser forum at http://www.cabforum.org/
I'm not aware if this issue was discussed there.



Just as saying "buffer overflows are bad" has not magically caused all
buffer overflows to be fixed, I am confident that the only way to get
this problem fixed is to chase down all the culprits individually.

As I indicated, I believe this to be the wrong approach - specially not targeting OpenID whose following is still 
rather smallish compared to others...You still can find many affected sites and services including financial 
institutions (banks), government agencies and more...finding a few OpenID OPs is certainly not a surprise (I was 
surprised to learn about SUN having an affected key however ;-) ) since around 3 % of all web sites were affected 
before disclosure.


I am sure that OpenID is not the only thing with problems, as you say.


Nope! I'll be glad to facilitate and help you to advance awareness at any forum you choose, which hopefully will have a 
better effect overall, than to single out specific standards and services. In that respect I suggest to change the 
current advisory relating to OpenID.


Regards

Signer:         Eddy Nigg, StartCom Ltd.<http://www.startcom.org>
Jabber:         startcom () startcom org<xmpp:startcom () startcom org>
Blog:   Join the Revolution!<http://blog.startcom.org>
Phone:  +1.213.341.0390


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