From: dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr. Dimitri Vulis)
Date: Sun, 31 Dec 1995 00:49:17 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: easy avoidance of PGP signature forgeries and reuse
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSD.3.91.951229172352.26978C-100000@usr5.primenet.com>
Message-ID: <y9HXgD18w165w@bwalk.dm.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


attila <attila@primenet.com> writes:
> 	I never paid much attention to the problem other than to avoid
>     it by forcing it --i.e. list the destination and the send inside the
>     signature block, thus:
>
>     ----------------- BEGIN PGP SIGNED TEXT
>
>     To: john doe <john@box.com>
>     Newsgroups: sci.crypt
>     From: jane roe <jane@topsey.turvey.com>
>     Subject: that's all folks!
...


Good - that's just what I've proposed :). However right now the overwhelming
majority of people who PGP-sign their writings, don't include a copy of the
headers within the signed portion.

Those few who do, all seem to use different formats, so the signed headers
cannot be easily compared to the headers in the actual envelope by a program.

I propose a format below.

> 	with e-mail, e-letters, direct faxes, etc. it is to easy to
>     ignore the courtesy header. From a standpoint of security, you have
>     blown away each of the attacks outline in your article in so much as
>     the signature will not compute if the courtesy block is omitted.

I totally agree; that's why I propose copying that info in the signed portion
"by default".

> 	personally, I do not think PGP 3 should attempt to solve the
>     problem. Most of the headers involved are applied _after_ the message
>     leaves the mail program; and, PGP interfaces are virtually the same
>     as invoking an alternate editor, which gets you nothing.

I don't think that a protocol for signing headers that requires mime/multipart
is going to be widely used, especially for Usenet postings. I've thought about
it and came up with the following idea for the syntax:

----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----

some text

----BEGIN PGP SIGNED HEADERS----

From: address                          [all these are optional]
To: address[,address]...
Newsgroups: group[,group]...
Date: rfc 822 date
Subject: subject

----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----
Version 2.6.2

12341234...

----END PGP SIGNATURE----

The "signed headers" portion may contain the following optional fields:

From: address -- the address associated with the key used to sign this message

To: address[,address]... -- addresses (user@host, no names) of the recipients
in RFC 822 To: and Cc: headers (not the Bcc: recipients). Addresses mangled
by various gateways shouldn't verify.

Newsgroups: group[,group]... -- the newsgroups from the RFC 1036 header

Date: and Subject: -- should match the header

The sequence of events would be:
* pick the addressees and the newsgroups + compose the text
* sign the signed portion
* post/e-mail the result to the specified addressees/newsgroups.

(Of course, the poster could lie and claim in the signed portion that the
article is being posted to alt.sex.pedo when he himself posts it to misc.kids:)

If a standard like this catches on, and is integrated into PGP-aware
news/e-mail programs, then it's a simple exercise to write a little script to
look for BEGIN PGP SIGNED HEADERS and compare the information inside it with
the RFC 822/1036 headers outside the signed portion of the message. It could
be done within PGP too.


---

Dr. Dimitri Vulis
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps