Counterpane Cracks MS's PPTP

http://www.counterpane.com/pptp.html


Thanks to GM

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In <Version.32.19980601122218.00fbc410@pop.pipeline.com>, on 06/01/98 
   at 12:23 PM, John Young <jya@pipeline.com> said:


>http://www.counterpane.com/pptp.html

>Thanks to GM


<sig> when will people learn?

Microsoft is *incapable* and *unwilling* to provide even nominal security
for it's platforms.

Several problems that exist:

Technical Ability -- Microsoft is seriously lacking in the technical
know-how when it comes to cryptology and data security.

Corporate Mentality -- Microsoft does not have the mentality needed to
produce secure products. This is a company that has historically shipped
poorly designed, bug filled products out the door. Bugs are not seen as a
problem but as an opportunity to sell upgrades. While this has done them
well in selling their overpriced GameBoys (the sheeple never cease to
disappoint me) it is *not* the environment for developing secure products.


Previous security foobars by M$:

NT C2 <---- LOL!!!

Active X <---- Who was the brain child that though *that* up?

Auto-Launch attached binaries in E-Mail <-- Can we say GoodTimes?

Crypto-API <--- Right I would *trust* that. Honest. :)

TCP/IP Stack <--- Too many flaws to list.


Why would anyone trust these simpletons to produce any type of security
product?


- -- 
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
William H. Geiger III  http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting    Cooking With Warp 4.0

Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice
PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail.
OS/2 PGP 5.0 at: http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii/pgp.html
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
 
Tag-O-Matic: I love running Windows! NOT!

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> >http://www.counterpane.com/pptp.html

	This has got to be the scariest crypto-related paper I've 
	ever read.  Detailed therein is just an unnatural amount of
	screwing up for any one company, much less one product.

	How many of us had to explain to a sci.crypt newbie why we can't 
	use the same one-time-pad string or cipher stream repeatedly?  Here
	we have Microsoft re-using RC4 keys in OUTPUT FEEDBACK MODE.  In the 
	same session, fer God's sake, you and the server both use the same
	XOR stream to encrypt?  

	This is not a subtle, excusable boo-boo.  It's not even a crypto
	mistake:  it's a basic inability to comprehend what the exclusive-or
	operation does.

	I gotta admit, my first impression was that Schneier, et al, 
	were engaging in a heapin' helpin' of MS-bashing on their page.
	Having read the paper, however, I'm now convinced that they
	brushed too (po-)lightly over some real howlers.  One might
	get the false impression that these are subtle flaws, rather
	than gaping holes from Hell.

	We gotta convince Bill to fire his crypto people, for the
	good of humanity.  I suggest we get the message across by
	sending MS a bunch of t-shirts reading, "Everything I ever
	needed to know about crypto I learned from the LANMAN hash."

							-Xcott

==-  Xcott Craver -- Caj@niu.edu -- http://www.math.niu.edu/~caj/  -==
"This is a different thing:  it's spontaneous and it's called 'wit.'"
                                                      -The Black Adder

At 03:23 PM 6/2/98 +1200, Chris Wedgwood wrote:
>
>On Mon, Jun 01, 1998 at 04:24:44PM -0500, William H. Geiger III wrote:
>
>> Previous security foobars by M$:
>> 
>> NT C2 <---- LOL!!!
>
>Standard marketroid talk, I think M$ still tout this, but not so loudly
>these days. Last I heard they were trying to get C2 with network
>connectivity, but that was a while ago (2 years?) so they may have given up.
>I'm sure I would have heard if it had.
>
>That said, C2 doesn't necessarily buy you all that much.

Is this not what they claimed when they sold NT to the Air Force?  Judging
by some of the Air Force software I have seen, this frightens me more than
most things.

>> Active X <---- Who was the brain child that though *that* up?
>
>Sure it sucks, it sucks for lots of reasons. But for the average luser it
>still better than plugins so thats why its taken off. And what make
>downloading a plugin and installing that any better? 

You have a little more control over plug-ins.

>> Auto-Launch attached binaries in E-Mail <-- Can we say GoodTimes?
>
>Can anyone confirm that this has indeed been fixed yet?
>
>I should also point out that buffer overflow bugs have been known for some
>time (years?) with various unix mailers and their handling of .mailcap which
>essentially amounts to the same thing.

But those are specific to the client.  Most Unix users know better.

>> Crypto-API <--- Right I would *trust* that. Honest. :)
>
>Does anyone have a list of design and implementation flaws for CAPI? I've
>had discussions with a couple of people about these, but never seen anything
>published.

I know of one, but I cannot release details yet.  (I did not discover it
and i need to wait until the non-beta version of the product is released.)
Besides, I have been told I will be killed if I reveal it before it is time.

>> TCP/IP Stack <--- Too many flaws to list.
>
>Yeah... its crap, but not necessarily that much worse that some of the
>others out there. If someone were keeping score on which stacks help up the
>best against all the attacks of the last two years it probably wouldn't be
>the worst.

A great deal of this blame can be placed on the WinSock spec.  The spec was
quite "loose" in many details of the implementation.  You could be
complient and still not be able to deal with much of the software out
there.  My vote for bad PC stack of the century was the one put out by Sun.
 Not even close to compatible...

>> Why would anyone trust these simpletons to produce any type of security
>> product?
>
>Sure. 95% of the population does.

Sturgeon's law applies to people as well...

>People need to be educated about important issues, and using lots of
>complicated gobbledygook doesn't help. If you, like me, have a loved one
>that isn't terribly interested in computers or encryption, then see if the
>phrase 'modular exponentiation' doesn't kick there eye-glaze-secreting gland
>into over drive.

Most everything involving computers tends to do that.

>I guess this is something Bruce Schneier has done well - a report for
>technical people who will read it, laugh and say they aren't surprised, and
>press releases with LOTS OF BIG LETTERS AND SMALL WORDS for the rest of the
>population including morons that are the media.

You can type it out in clear, short sentences and the media will still
screw it up.  If you have no clue as to what you are writing about, the
accuracy of what you write will suffer.

>I think everyone is waiting for NT5. Multi-user NT is at best an interesting
>concept. I remember at university using (arguably buggy) unix boxen with
>200+ users simultaneously, with relatively few problems, but I'll be really
>surprised if NT could get close to this....

Multi-user NT is available now.  Citrix and NCD both have versions out now.
 (Both are based on NT 3.51.  They would have released a 4.0 product long
ago, but Microsoft wanted the product for themselves.)  The server load
seems to be about 50 users per box.   Depends on what you are running.

>I am so looking forward to NT5, it should prove to be very entertaining and
>perhaps a really good opportunity to educate the public.

Assuming that they can be educated.  Better to offer them a choice.  It is
hard to say "X is bad" unless you have an alternative.

On Mon, Jun 01, 1998 at 10:03:43PM -0700, Alan wrote:

> >That said, C2 doesn't necessarily buy you all that much.
> 
> Is this not what they claimed when they sold NT to the Air Force?  Judging
> by some of the Air Force software I have seen, this frightens me more than
> most things.

Either M$ lied, or the Air Force should no better. In the former, the Air
Force should sue M$, but more likely its the latter. Why should the Air
Force have clue-full people when most large corporates, banks, governments,
IT companies and software companies do not?

Governments with large databases full of all your personal details and banks
with all your financial details are two really good examples of
organizations which should do a good job with system security and
reliability but invariably do the worst (some exceptions apply).

> >Sure it sucks, it sucks for lots of reasons. But for the average luser it
> >still better than plugins so thats why its taken off. And what make
> >downloading a plugin and installing that any better?
> 
> You have a little more control over plug-ins.

It doesn't really buy much. Most people will blindly download anything and
install it. If it doesn't install the first time by finding all the right
file locations, etc. and allowing the use to click Next every time, they
will start deleting files at random trying to remove it.

Perhaps I'm over stating things, but I'm a tad jaded from having to make
documentation and software work for morons (the public at large).

> But those are specific to the client.  Most Unix users know better.

The M$ example is confined to a specific client. Many unix users use unix
because they are required too, these people are probably as clue-less and
luse95 users.

On average the number of clue-full 95 users against the number of clue-full
unix users is probably 10:1 despite luse95 large user base, quoting numbers
which I just made up of course and clue-full being defined by me, and able
to be redefined whenever I feel like it.

This is all beside the point - someone mentioned that a M$ mailer had a very
nasty bug, I just pointed out that can and has also occurred elsewhere.

> >Does anyone have a list of design and implementation flaws for CAPI? I've
> >had discussions with a couple of people about these, but never seen
> >anything published.
> 
> I know of one, but I cannot release details yet.  (I did not discover it
> and i need to wait until the non-beta version of the product is released.)
> Besides, I have been told I will be killed if I reveal it before it is
> time.

It can wait. It seems plenty of others are waiting.... 
 
> >Yeah... its crap, but not necessarily that much worse that some of the
> >others out there. If someone were keeping score on which stacks help up
> >the best against all the attacks of the last two years it probably
> >wouldn't be the worst.
> 
> A great deal of this blame can be placed on the WinSock spec.  The spec
> was quite "loose" in many details of the implementation.  You could be
> complient and still not be able to deal with much of the software out
> there.  

The issues most people complain about are not related to the WinSock API,
but poor coding in the stack that make stack overflows and memory buffer
curruption trivial. Similar bugs used to exist in the *BSD and linux stacks,
as with the streams library used by SCO and Solaris (although maybe solaris
has something funny there).

> My vote for bad PC stack of the century was the one put out by Sun.
> Not even close to compatible...

No, my shit-stack-off-the-week (I just decided now) goes to Ultrix stack
which barfs on unknown tcp options and hence is complete fucked when tying
to comminicate with a recent *BSD or linux boxes, solaris and possible
Win98/NT5.

> Sturgeon's law applies to people as well...

?

Sorry... don't know it.
 
> >People need to be educated about important issues, and using lots of
> >complicated gobbledygook doesn't help. If you, like me, have a loved one
> >that isn't terribly interested in computers or encryption, then see if
> >the phrase 'modular exponentiation' doesn't kick there
> >eye-glaze-secreting gland into over drive.
> 
> Most everything involving computers tends to do that.

Only because people are fed bullshit and lies by 80% of the industry
'consultants' who don't know much and use big words to cover this up.

I really think people would be much more willing if they weren't feed so
much crap at times.

> You can type it out in clear, short sentences and the media will still
> screw it up.  If you have no clue as to what you are writing about, the
> accuracy of what you write will suffer.

Again, the above applies, but bear in mind that most people in the modern
media have little interest in the truth unless it helps sales, and if not
then just 'modify the story a bit'. 

It also helps to consider that most reporters are pretty dumb and lack any
real qualifications to talk about the things that they do, PC rag. editors
being a really good example.


Lets face it, we use the 'net and crypto, so we are dirty filthy prevented
peadophile unabomber criminals who are going to pervert the youth and
corrupt the America way. If you deny this it just proves what an
untrustworthy person you are.

> Multi-user NT is available now. Citrix and NCD both have versions out now.
> (Both are based on NT 3.51. They would have released a 4.0 product long
> ago, but Microsoft wanted the product for themselves.) The server load
> seems to be about 50 users per box. Depends on what you are running.

Slightly different that NT5 though... I know people working on large Citrix
boxes with 2GB of ram and they speak quite highly of it, but their 40+ users
are running custom apps. with an NT4 like gui.

I'm not so sure it would work so great with 10+ people running Visual C++ to
compile and debug code.... where as unix boxen have been doing this for
years with 500+ people.

What really sucks is there is some nice ideas in bits of NT, only what
little kewl stuff there is has lost all credibility because of the
atrociously large bloated buggy code that constitutes the other 99% of it.

> Assuming that they can be educated.  Better to offer them a choice.  It is
> hard to say "X is bad" unless you have an alternative.

The real shame in all this is there is no really viable choice to the evil
borg. Not yet anyhow....



-Chris

On Mon, Jun 01, 1998 at 04:24:44PM -0500, William H. Geiger III wrote:

> Previous security foobars by M$:
> 
> NT C2 <---- LOL!!!

Standard marketroid talk, I think M$ still tout this, but not so loudly
these days. Last I heard they were trying to get C2 with network
connectivity, but that was a while ago (2 years?) so they may have given up.
I'm sure I would have heard if it had.

That said, C2 doesn't necessarily buy you all that much.

> Active X <---- Who was the brain child that though *that* up?

Sure it sucks, it sucks for lots of reasons. But for the average luser it
still better than plugins so thats why its taken off. And what make
downloading a plugin and installing that any better? 

> Auto-Launch attached binaries in E-Mail <-- Can we say GoodTimes?

Can anyone confirm that this has indeed been fixed yet?

I should also point out that buffer overflow bugs have been known for some
time (years?) with various unix mailers and their handling of .mailcap which
essentially amounts to the same thing.

> Crypto-API <--- Right I would *trust* that. Honest. :)

Does anyone have a list of design and implementation flaws for CAPI? I've
had discussions with a couple of people about these, but never seen anything
published.

> TCP/IP Stack <--- Too many flaws to list.

Yeah... its crap, but not necessarily that much worse that some of the
others out there. If someone were keeping score on which stacks help up the
best against all the attacks of the last two years it probably wouldn't be
the worst.

> Why would anyone trust these simpletons to produce any type of security
> product?

Sure. 95% of the population does.

People need to be educated about important issues, and using lots of
complicated gobbledygook doesn't help. If you, like me, have a loved one
that isn't terribly interested in computers or encryption, then see if the
phrase 'modular exponentiation' doesn't kick there eye-glaze-secreting gland
into over drive.

I guess this is something Bruce Schneier has done well - a report for
technical people who will read it, laugh and say they aren't surprised, and
press releases with LOTS OF BIG LETTERS AND SMALL WORDS for the rest of the
population including morons that are the media.

I think everyone is waiting for NT5. Multi-user NT is at best an interesting
concept. I remember at university using (arguably buggy) unix boxen with
200+ users simultaneously, with relatively few problems, but I'll be really
surprised if NT could get close to this....

I am so looking forward to NT5, it should prove to be very entertaining and
perhaps a really good opportunity to educate the public.


OK, getting bored with this reply now, so here it goes, errors and all....


-Chris

P.S. How does M$ sidestep the ITAR with ipsec code in Win98/NT5?

As reguards:

> Previous security foobars by M$:
>
> NT C2 <---- LOL!!!

I beleive that no operating system has ever been given a C2 certification,
and that only indiviual installations can be certifed.

This requries that each installation be transported and conducted under
armed guard, which is case with certain US government Microsoft NT
Workstation installations.

It is also stated (somewhere, but I don't have the details to hand) that no
C2 rated system should be plugged in to an external network connection (i.e.
the internet), and that only connections to secure LAN's/WAN's are permitted
(otherwise the C2 certification is meaningless, hence why NT Sever has never
been C2 certified IIRC).

I would be grateful if anyone can categorically deny or in any way support
this.

> Auto-Launch attached binaries in E-Mail <-- Can we say GoodTimes?

The GoodTimes virus was, according to the DOE's CAIC a hoax. This is also my
personal opinion. This is what DOE's CAIC have to say:
http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html#goodtimes
Or, more amusingly.
http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html#goodspoof

However All E-mail readers that support HTML & JavaScript/Java/Active-X are
inherantly insecure. This inlcudes Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Outlook,
where mearly the act of previewing a malicious message can cause adverse
effects.

If anyone were to include a embed a malicious Java or Active-X control then
the supposed sandbox in Windows 9X/NT would be ineffectual as one could
conceviably create a control which could execute software anywhere on the
hard disk (this has already been done using both Active-X and IE under
Windows 95). Thus it follows that it could determain what viewer it is being
read under and execute any other attachments in the same e-mail from where
the are stored (in Netscape/Outlook) which could then... <please complete
this sentence using your own words>

Iain Collins, icollins@sol.co.uk

Iain Collins wrote:
<<snip>>

> I beleive that no operating system has ever been given a C2 certification,
> and that only indiviual installations can be certifed.
>

Both Right and WrongC2 (or other) certification is given to a product system,
not an OS  nor an installation.  NT on a specific configuration of a specific
manufacturer, fo instance. (and with a specific mix of other software)  The
intent was to make available Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) systems for gov
purchase.)  But the concept was generated in the mainframe/Mini frame of mind.

> This requries that each installation be transported and conducted under
> armed guard, which is case with certain US government Microsoft NT
> Workstation installations.
>
> It is also stated (somewhere, but I don't have the details to hand) that no
> C2 rated system should be plugged in to an external network connection (i.e.
> the internet), and that only connections to secure LAN's/WAN's are permitted
> (otherwise the C2 certification is meaningless, hence why NT Sever has never
> been C2 certified IIRC).
>

The network issue is one with deep ramifications and not as simple as listed in
the above Para.  Two totally secure nets can be not secure when connected to
each other because of the data interface for security levels, user permisisions
etc.

> I would be grateful if anyone can categorically deny or in any way support
> this.
>

NCSC has a whole line of books on it all.  Red is the Network Interpretation,
Orange is the Criteria itself.

> <<SNIP>>

PHM

author, NOT the Orange Book -- A Guide to the Definition, Specification,
Tasking, and Documentation for the Development of Secure Computer Systems --
Including Condensations of the Memebers of the Rainbow Series and Related
Documents, Merlyn Press, WPAFB, 1992

NTOB is available for those who want it.

Windows NT4.0 has been tested under the red book spec published by the
NCSC. That means in effect, NT is C2 compliant in a stand alone
environment. Howver, NT does NOT comply with the orange book spec which
defines additional requirements when the machine is used in a networked
environment. It *IS* possible for an operating system that is on a
networked machine to be C2(Orange Book) compliant. Microsoft has never
stated that it is C2 compliant on a network, however their page about C2
and NT is poorly worded, and effectively discounts the importance of the
Orange Book spec.

It would be fun to get ahold of the specs from the NCSC.

-Jim

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

In
<Pine.GSO.3.93.980602185641.27020B-100000@chemistry.mps.ohio-state.edu>,
on 06/02/98 
   at 07:09 PM, Jim Tatz <jtatz@chemistry.ohio-state.edu> said:

>Windows NT4.0 has been tested under the red book spec published by the
>NCSC. That means in effect, NT is C2 compliant in a stand alone
>environment. Howver, NT does NOT comply with the orange book spec which
>defines additional requirements when the machine is used in a networked
>environment. It *IS* possible for an operating system that is on a
>networked machine to be C2(Orange Book) compliant. Microsoft has never
>stated that it is C2 compliant on a network, however their page about C2
>and NT is poorly worded, and effectively discounts the importance of the
>Orange Book spec.

>It would be fun to get ahold of the specs from the NCSC.

You have this backward,

The "Red Book": NCSC-TG-005 "Trusted Network Interpretation of the Trusted
Computer System Evaluation Criteria"

The "Orange Book": DOD 5200.28-STD "DOD Trusted Computer System Evaluation
Criteria"

A NT machine to meet DOD 5200.28 C2 rating needs to be seriously crippled
when comapired to normal operation. No removable media, No Modem, No
Network Connection, hell pluging the dam thing and turning it on probably
puts it's C2 rating in jepordy.

The reason M$ downplays their C2 rating is that in average day to day use
of this OS it does not meet this rating.

NT has never had any RedBook rating and is not certified for use in a
secure network.


- -- 
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
William H. Geiger III  http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting    Cooking With Warp 4.0

Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice
PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail.
OS/2 PGP 5.0 at: http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii/pgp.html
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
 
Tag-O-Matic: OS/2 means...CURTAINS for Windows!

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> A NT machine to meet DOD 5200.28 C2 rating needs to be seriously crippled
> when comapired to normal operation. No removable media, No Modem, No
> Network Connection, hell pluging the dam thing and turning it on probably
> puts it's C2 rating in jepordy.
> 
> The reason M$ downplays their C2 rating is that in average day to day use
> of this OS it does not meet this rating.
> 
> NT has never had any RedBook rating and is not certified for use in a
> secure network.

In addition to the converstaion, MS says:
Microsoft has opted not to include certain components of Windows NT in the
evaluation process, not because they would not pass the evaluation, but to
save time by reducing the load on the NSA. Additionally, the
MS-DOS/Windows on Windows (WOW) system may be treated as a Win32
application and would therefore not need to be evaluated as part of the
Trusted Computer Base (TCB). Networking on NT may not have to go
through the "Red Book," or "Trusted Network Interpretation." It may be
enough to consider networking to be another subsystem, and therefore only
the Orange Book would apply. New or modified components and other hardware
platforms can go through a "RAMP" process to be included in the evaluation
at a later time. 

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q93/3/62.asp
[Isn't it great, you have to register for FREE support?]

-Jim

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

In
<Pine.GSO.3.93.980602200540.28995A-100000@chemistry.mps.ohio-state.edu>,
on 06/02/98 
   at 08:14 PM, Jim Tatz <jtatz@chemistry.ohio-state.edu> said:

>In addition to the converstaion, MS says:
>Microsoft has opted not to include certain components of Windows NT in
>the evaluation process, not because they would not pass the evaluation,
>but to save time by reducing the load on the NSA. Additionally, the
>MS-DOS/Windows on Windows (WOW) system may be treated as a Win32
>application and would therefore not need to be evaluated as part of the
>Trusted Computer Base (TCB). Networking on NT may not have to go through
>the "Red Book," or "Trusted Network Interpretation." It may be enough to
>consider networking to be another subsystem, and therefore only the
>Orange Book would apply. New or modified components and other hardware
>platforms can go through a "RAMP" process to be included in the
>evaluation at a later time. 


Good God what kind of double talk is this? It doesn't need Red Book eval.
and networking can be treated as a sub-system?!? Well I guess the guys
down at NSA just wrote the Red Book (which is significantly larger than
the Orange Book) because they were board.

I would not trust Micky$lop to tell me that the sky was blue and water was
wet let alone trust them to provide *any* form of security product.

- -- 
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
William H. Geiger III  http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting    Cooking With Warp 4.0

Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice
PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail.
OS/2 PGP 5.0 at: http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii/pgp.html
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
 
Tag-O-Matic: Get OS/2 - the best Windows tip around!

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> 
> >Windows NT4.0 has been tested under the red book spec published by the
> >NCSC. That means in effect, NT is C2 compliant in a stand alone
> >environment. Howver, NT does NOT comply with the orange book spec which
> >defines additional requirements when the machine is used in a networked
> >environment. It *IS* possible for an operating system that is on a
> >networked machine to be C2(Orange Book) compliant. Microsoft has never
> >stated that it is C2 compliant on a network, however their page about C2
> >and NT is poorly worded, and effectively discounts the importance of the
> >Orange Book spec.
Do you know the Redbook specs?  From my understanding of the specs to have
a C2 rateing you can't have a NIC card or Disk Drive.  But I think you can
have a NIC card in the machine connected to a network that is enrycpted
network.  But I could be wrong but I don't forget most of what I read.. 

> 
> >It would be fun to get ahold of the specs from the NCSC.
> 
> You have this backward,
> 
> The "Red Book": NCSC-TG-005 "Trusted Network Interpretation of the Trusted
> Computer System Evaluation Criteria"

> The "Orange Book": DOD 5200.28-STD "DOD Trusted Computer System Evaluation
> Criteria"
> 
> A NT machine to meet DOD 5200.28 C2 rating needs to be seriously crippled
> when comapired to normal operation. No removable media, No Modem, No
> Network Connection, hell pluging the dam thing and turning it on probably
> puts it's C2 rating in jepordy.
> 
> The reason M$ downplays their C2 rating is that in average day to day use
> of this OS it does not meet this rating.
> 
> NT has never had any RedBook rating and is not certified for use in a
> secure network.
MS is haveing problems meeting the standards and they have alot of work
to do on NT when it comes to Secuirty.  Any was see MSN.com today?

			|)ark |(night

DEFINITION.
Windows 95: n.   32 bit extensions and a graphical shell for a
16 bit patch to an 8 bit operating system originally coded for
a 4 bit microprocessor, written by a 2 bit company, that can't
stand 1 bit of competition.

Http://www.EliteHackers.org/DarkKnight

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

In <Pine.LNX.3.96.980602172921.21860A-100000@Nigger.EliteHackers.org>, on
06/02/98 
   at 12:35 PM, Dark Knight <DarkKnight@EliteHackers.org> said:

>Do you know the Redbook specs?  From my understanding of the specs to
>have a C2 rateing you can't have a NIC card or Disk Drive.  But I think
>you can have a NIC card in the machine connected to a network that is
>enrycpted network.  But I could be wrong but I don't forget most of what
>I read.. 

You are making the same mistake the previous poster made on this.

Orange Book == Standalone
Red Book    == Network

The numerious criteria for the various levels of trusted systems are too
numerious to list here. I *strongly* recomend obtaining copies of the
Rainbow Series from the NSA (they will mail a copy for free) and studying
the documentation. They are well written and easy to read (unlike many
such papers which are techno-bable filled).

There are aprox. 30 manuals in the Rainbow Series that cover a wide range
of topics related to Trusted Systems of which the Orange Book is a small
part. I doubt you could find more than 5 M$ employees that have read more
than a quarter of the manuals let alone are able to implement their
principals. 

- -- 
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
William H. Geiger III  http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting    Cooking With Warp 4.0

Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice
PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail.
OS/2 PGP 5.0 at: http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii/pgp.html
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
 
Tag-O-Matic: I love running Windows! NOT!

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> 
> In <Pine.LNX.3.96.980602172921.21860A-100000@Nigger.EliteHackers.org>, on
> 06/02/98 
>    at 12:35 PM, Dark Knight <DarkKnight@EliteHackers.org> said:
> 
> >Do you know the Redbook specs?  From my understanding of the specs to
> >have a C2 rateing you can't have a NIC card or Disk Drive.  But I think
> >you can have a NIC card in the machine connected to a network that is
> >enrycpted network.  But I could be wrong but I don't forget most of what
> >I read.. 
> 
> You are making the same mistake the previous poster made on this.
> 
> Orange Book == Standalone
> Red Book    == Network
> 
> The numerious criteria for the various levels of trusted systems are too
> numerious to list here. I *strongly* recomend obtaining copies of the
> Rainbow Series from the NSA (they will mail a copy for free) and studying
> the documentation. They are well written and easy to read (unlike many
> such papers which are techno-bable filled).
> 
> There are aprox. 30 manuals in the Rainbow Series that cover a wide range
> of topics related to Trusted Systems of which the Orange Book is a small
> part. I doubt you could find more than 5 M$ employees that have read more
> than a quarter of the manuals let alone are able to implement their
> principals. 
I had a copy but like a dumb ass I forgot them where I used to live.  I
don't think the NSA or DOD I think it's the NSA gives away free copys any
more.. 

			|)ark |(night

DEFINITION.
Windows 95: n.   32 bit extensions and a graphical shell for a
16 bit patch to an 8 bit operating system originally coded for
a 4 bit microprocessor, written by a 2 bit company, that can't
stand 1 bit of competition.

Http://www.EliteHackers.org/DarkKnight

On Tue, 2 Jun 1998, Jim Tatz wrote:

> 
> Windows NT4.0 has been tested under the red book spec published by the
> NCSC. That means in effect, NT is C2 compliant in a stand alone
> environment. Howver, NT does NOT comply with the orange book spec which
> defines additional requirements when the machine is used in a networked
> environment. It *IS* possible for an operating system that is on a
> networked machine to be C2(Orange Book) compliant. Microsoft has never
> stated that it is C2 compliant on a network, however their page about C2
> and NT is poorly worded, and effectively discounts the importance of the
> Orange Book spec.
> 
> It would be fun to get ahold of the specs from the NCSC.

I believe you've got your colors backwards here..

NT is C2 compliant in standalone format, with Posix disabled.  It's an
unusable configuration.  That's all I can remember off the top of my head
though..

Ryan Anderson 
PGP fp: 7E 8E C6 54 96 AC D9 57  E4 F8 AE 9C 10 7E 78 C9

This is a good paper. It covered almost all of the failures of MS PPTP.  
However, I think it missed a big one.
It is possible to recover all the clear text from a PPTP session,
even if most of the traffic is going in one direction only.
The failure is in MPPE.  When MPPE gets a sequenceing error, it
resets the key.  This causes the cipher stream to be reset.  It is
partially covered in section 5.4 .
Since RC4 is a stream cipher, it generates the same
cipher stream for a given key.  This cipher stream is XORed with the clear
text.
To recover the clear text, an attacker just needs to force a
resyncronization by
sending a packet that has a bogus coherency count.  
If the attacker captures the original stream and the resynchronized stream
a simple XOR of the two streams results in an XOR of the cleartext.
While compression does make it harder to determine what the cleartext is,
It is likely that a determined attacker can decrypt and decompress the
XORed result.  
Brad
Brad Kemp
Indus River Networks, Inc.                   BradKemp@indusriver.com
31 Nagog Park						 978-266-8122
Acton, MA 01720                              fax 978-266-8111

On Tue, 2 Jun 1998, Brad Kemp wrote:

> It is possible to recover all the clear text from a PPTP session,
> even if most of the traffic is going in one direction only.
> The failure is in MPPE.  When MPPE gets a sequenceing error, it
> resets the key.  This causes the cipher stream to be reset.  It is
> partially covered in section 5.4.

	I really think the XOR weaknesses deserve as much publicity 
	as possible, because they are IMHO the simplest to exploit,
	and the result of the dumbest mistakes.

	So far we have three:  40-bit RC4 uses the same key with every 
	session (!!), the client and server seems to encrypt with the same
	key stream going both ways (!!!), and then this resequencing
	attack.

	Are all three of these fixed?  The certainly aren't 
	"theoretical." 

==-  Xcott Craver -- Caj@niu.edu -- http://www.math.niu.edu/~caj/  -==
"This is a different thing:  it's spontaneous and it's called 'wit.'"
                                                      -The Black Adder