[tahoe-lafs-trac-stream] [Tahoe-LAFS] #2330: the fact that Tahoe-LAFS depends on PyCrypto makes people think it might be insecure

[Tahoe-LAFS]

#2330: the fact that Tahoe-LAFS depends on PyCrypto makes people think it might be
insecure
-----------------------------------+---------------------------
 Reporter:  zooko                  |          Owner:  marlowe
     Type:  defect                 |         Status:  new
 Priority:  normal                 |      Milestone:  undecided
Component:  documentation          |        Version:  1.10.0
 Keywords:  pycrypto-lib security  |  Launchpad Bug:
-----------------------------------+---------------------------
 For example, here is a conversation on twitter featuring some good
 security researchers and one of the original authors of the AES code in
 !PyCrypto:

 https://twitter.com/pbarreto/status/532950080761131008

 (He's the one saying "That's an *old* code indeed. I *would* presume its
 only purpose now is to study cache-based attacks.".)

 Now, we've already written docs warning our users not to rely on
 confidentiality of the SFTP channel because of this, in
 [wiki:SftpFrontend] and [source:docs/frontends/FTP-and-SFTP.rst], but of
 course most users don't read most docs, so they might actually rely on
 confidentiality of the SFTP channel. Also, the fact that we depend on
 !PyCrypto at all causes people to think that Tahoe-LAFS might be only as
 secure as !PyCrypto is.

 The best solution would, of course, be to get rid of !PyCrypto entirely,
 but that is up to the Twisted project
 (https://twistedmatrix.com/trac/ticket/7413), not up to us. In the
 meantime, I don't think there's much we can do, since it is already
 documented. So I'm going to immediately close this bug as "someone else's
 problem".

 Also, here is a ticket for !PyCrypto to fix their timing leak:
 https://github.com/dlitz/pycrypto/issues/103

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Ticket URL: <https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/2330>
Tahoe-LAFS <https://Tahoe-LAFS.org>
secure decentralized storage