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1994-12-28 - Re: Why I have a 512 bit PGP key

Header Data

From: Jeff Barber <jeffb@sware.com>
To: eric@remailer.net (Eric Hughes)
Message Hash: 6c2855386501f9d7c65be1ff1a834ef8a85b1cf6e7108dfadf8048b5ff4d027c
Message ID: <9412281344.AA09514@wombat.sware.com>
Reply To: <199412280713.XAA02404@largo.remailer.net>
UTC Datetime: 1994-12-28 14:03:12 UTC
Raw Date: Wed, 28 Dec 94 06:03:12 PST

Raw message

From: Jeff Barber <jeffb@sware.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Dec 94 06:03:12 PST
To: eric@remailer.net (Eric Hughes)
Subject: Re: Why I have a 512 bit PGP key
In-Reply-To: <199412280713.XAA02404@largo.remailer.net>
Message-ID: <9412281344.AA09514@wombat.sware.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Eric Hughes writes:
> 
>    From: "Ian Farquhar" <ianf@sydney.sgi.com>
> 
>    > Recompile the binary from newly uploaded source each time.  MD5 source
>    > isn't more than about 10K long.  That's all of a few seconds of upload
>    > time.
> 
>    Irritating [...]
> 
> ???  An upload can be automated, just like anything other solution.

Then the automated part (script or whatever) simply becomes another piece
that needs to be protected.


> You can't go about protecting against the modification of binaries by
> relying upon one of your binaries being better protected than the
> rest.  There's an infinite regress involved here.  The solution is to
> go outside the regress.  Recreating the binary from scratch is one
> way.  I'm sure there are others.

No -- in the absence of other measures, recreating the binary from 
scratch is not such a way.  You've merely added the compiler and its
associated utilities to your regression list.  Nothing is gained --
other than additional irritation and delay.


-- Jeff

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