Twitter Implements Forward Secrecy For Connections 38
Fnord666 writes with this excerpt from Tech Crunch "Twitter has enabled Perfect Forward Secrecy across its mobile site, website and API feeds in order to protect against future cracking of the service's encryption. The PFS method ensures that, if the encryption key Twitter uses is cracked in the future, all of the past data transported through the network does not become an open book right away. 'If an adversary is currently recording all Twitter users' encrypted traffic, and they later crack or steal Twitter's private keys, they should not be able to use those keys to decrypt the recorded traffic,' says Twitter's Jacob Hoffman-Andrews. 'As the Electronic Frontier Foundation points out, this type of protection is increasingly important on today's Internet.'"
Of course, they are also using Elliptic Curve ciphers.
SSL? (Score:2)
So they switch to SSL? Thats kind of the point of the DH exchange in SSL. Stealing the key later still doesn't get you access to the data since the DH exchange ensures that neither side ever transmits enough information to derive the key.
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So they switch to SSL? Thats kind of the point of the DH exchange in SSL. Stealing the key later still doesn't get you access to the data since the DH exchange ensures that neither side ever transmits enough information to derive the key.
Because twitter security is important.
... particularly to big companies and brands. Maybe this will help them monetize their service?
Re:SSL? (Score:5, Informative)
Perfect Forward Security is optional in SSL - you can run SSL without DH exchange. That is the whole point of the article.
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I got the first post, do you seriously think I read the article? Be happy it was at least in the right ballpark topic wise!
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"I just went to the bathroom".
@JFK
#YOLO #suicide-vest # Allahu Akbar
Re: Thank God! (Score:2)
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Keep thinking that. This only applies to systems Twitter controls. If you tweet through SMS you're still vulnerable.
Re: I Don't Undertsand (Score:1)
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If the NSA can break the encryption they will be able to recover your login credentials. Then they can send false tweets to your friends saying "Help, I'm in Nigeria and my wallet was stolen. Can you wire me $1000?" or "Vote for Jeb Bush in 2016!"
Re:I Don't Undertsand (Score:5, Insightful)
Twitter is completely open to anyone. So, what's the point of encryption?
In my opinion, it's "non-optimal" (at best), to forgo encryption because you deem some traffic of yours to be of low-value. What does that tell your potential adversaries about the nature of the traffic you do encrypt? Regarding the destination, (in this case Twitter), it's unlikely known to many potential adversaries if you're using Tor, I2P, etc., , which (along with TLS with PFS,) add another layer of defense-in-depth.
Your thinking reminds me of people/businesses that own a shredder, but only use them to shred highly-sensitive documents — it makes the job of reconstructing shredded ("unshredding") documents faster, easier, and more fruitful.
In regard to my own data and traffic, I don't ask, "does this need to be encrypted?" I ask, "can this be encrypted? The browser plugin "TrackMeNot" helps in a similar manner, by hiding whatever I may actually search for within ~1,440 phony queries per day. I also shred everything my cross-cut shredder will accept, and I pull the o' Enron trick of mixing in used coffee grounds as an impersonal "fuck you" to any who'd try to unshred my Pennysavers, envelopes, subscription cards, scratched discs, and most importantly, "etc."
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Social network accounts (twitter/facebook/google/blogger) are used to automate login to other sites. If you don't want anyone other that the giant social network and their monetised advertising networks tracking you across 3rd party sites, you need to lock down the traffic between twitter/etc, you, and the 3rd party sites.
Isn't the data public anyway? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
"In boundaries of my imagination, the user account password is pretty much the only private data that Twitter stores."
Twitter messages are public but users can also send private messages.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter#Privacy_and_security [wikipedia.org]
Also, it's possible to "protect" tweets. The Twitter account will say:
"Only confirmed followers have access to @username's Tweets and complete profile. Click the "Follow" button to send a follow request."
Source: https://support.twitter.com/articles/14016-about [twitter.com]
Re: (Score:2)
If NSA has a complete record of which tweets you read, then the NSA already knows a lot about you.
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NGO, color revolution, 'spring' uprisings, human rights stories in select countries are great.
Talking about peace, drone strikes, protests, contractors, press rights, law reform could gain traction in other countries. No Western gov really wants to see that kind of real time interaction form in their countries on web 2.0.
So you do all you can to protect the "freedom" protesters with good crypto in select distant areas but ensure the NSA and
Re: (Score:1)
But isn't the point of Twatter so that you can share with the world that #ijusttookadump?
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Maybe the NSA and US government agencies isn't exactly who the user is afraid of monitoring their accounts. Maybe in areas like Syria where a simple tween of one faction or the other's troop advancement can mean something more serious then the US government knowing your panties are red today or whatever else you are tweeting. Maybe in Egypt or Iran, it is dangerous for the tweeter too. There are lots of entities you might not want to know what is in your tweets when they are marked private. Some could be go
PFS Determination+ (Score:5, Informative)
I recommend Calomel SSL Validation [calomel.org] to anyone who's interested in the security of their SSL/TLS connections. It adds a toolbar button, the color of which is determined by a weighted, composite score based on various connections security parameters: Bit-lengths, algos (e.g., AES > RC4), PFS, handshake/protocol, domain matching, etc. Clicking the button displays the complete break-down, including a percentage-score for overall connection security.
There's also a Tools menu dialog that allows one to toggle >=128 bit, >=256 bit, PFS, and/or FIPS connections exclusively, among other security and interface tweaks.
Along the same lines, I also recommend CipherFox [github.com], which has a configurable status-bar display of symmetric/asymmetric algos and their bit-lengths, and the hash function used in a secure connection. CipherFox also allows RC4 to be toggled, which is handy in conjunction Calomel.
The above are all freeware that appear to be written and published by individuals lacking a nefarious corporate agenda.
Google does the same thing? (Score:3)
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What's the value in having perfect forward security on the connection when they mine and share your data anyway?
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We agreed to Google doing that when signing up. No one has agreed to share their data with the NSA.
Safe elliptic curves... (Score:3)
While the NIST curves are suspect, slow, and problematic in a number of other ways, there are fast and safe [cr.yp.to] elliptic curves.
Elliptic curve (Score:2)
There are two ciphers family that will provide PFS: DHE (Diffie-Hellman Exchage) and ECDHE (Elliptic Curve DHE). Having PFS enabled for all modern browsers is just about the server offering both families with appropriate priorities, so that clients pick a PFS enabled cipher. Qualys SSL server test [ssllabs.com] is a good tool for checking for an appropriate configuration, although it could make clearer that you cannot both have PFS for modern browsers, and protect against BEAST server-side.
Note that the Elliptic Curve us