#723 new defect

helper: client should verify ciphertext hashes and UEB

Reported by: warner Owned by: daira
Priority: major Milestone: soon
Component: code-encoding Version: 1.4.1
Keywords: upload-helper integrity Cc:
Launchpad Bug:

Description (last modified by daira)

Prompted by a question from Daira, I spent some time today reviewing the helper code, and realized that the client should be doing more verification of the data that the helper returns to it. Specifically, the client should:

  • locally compute the ciphertext hashes (flat and Merkle tree), in upload.EncryptAnUploadable
  • compare these against the versions returned by the helper, in AssistedUploader._build_verifycap upload_results.uri_extension_data
  • compute and compare the resulting UEB hash

This would prevent the helper from causing an integrity violation. With the present behavior, the helper can flip bits in the ciphertext (or upload a completely unrelated ciphertext of the same length) and return the resulting ciphertext hash to the trusting client. Because the client doesn't perform any validation of the response, it will simply build and return the resulting filecap. Later, when someone attempts a download with this filecap, they will receive the altered ciphertext (but it will match the hash provided by the helper) and try to decrypt it. Since we removed the plaintext hashes in 7996131a0aa0b55c,7b21054c33d4651d,1e097766c9b4c873,db566db31a66e076, the downloader hash no way to check the plaintext either, and will return corrupted plaintext to the end user.

With the current codebase, this won't be too much work. But when pycryptopp#18 (allow random-access AES-CTR encryption) is fixed, I'd like to improve the assisted-uploader code to be more efficient in the resumed-upload case (by not encrypting-then-discarding all the previously-uploaded data), at which point this locally-generate-hashes fix would become more difficult. Or rather, I might have to forego the resumed-upload improvement to retain the don't-rely-on-helper-for-integrity property that this ticket would provide.

Change History (7)

comment:1 Changed at 2009-12-20T17:18:06Z by davidsarah

  • Keywords integrity added

comment:2 Changed at 2010-02-02T00:31:39Z by davidsarah

  • Milestone changed from undecided to 1.7.0
  • Owner set to davidsarah
  • Status changed from new to assigned

comment:3 Changed at 2010-04-12T17:24:04Z by davidsarah

Not sure if I'll be able to fit this in for 1.7, since I haven't looked at the code that uses the helper yet. Keeping it in that milestone for the time being.

comment:4 Changed at 2010-06-12T20:56:06Z by davidsarah

  • Milestone changed from 1.7.0 to 1.8.0

comment:5 Changed at 2010-08-08T05:30:25Z by davidsarah

  • Milestone changed from 1.8.0 to soon

comment:6 Changed at 2013-11-28T21:46:55Z by daira

  • Description modified (diff)
  • Owner changed from davidsarah to daira
  • Status changed from assigned to new

comment:7 Changed at 2015-08-16T15:26:01Z by zooko

  • Keywords upload-helper added; helper removed
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