Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2014 16:10:09 -0700
From: Chris Taylor <chris@...eclosure.com>
To: discussions@...sword-hashing.net
Cc: santiago torres <sat417@...dents.poly.edu>
Subject: Re: [PHC] Re: New password hashing entry: PolyPassHash

Joining the discussion a week late.

This is a neat idea, combining erasure codes with a PHS!  I'm very
interested in erasure codes, so this caught my eye right away.

The main advantage over multiple master keys is that it appears to be more
flexible.  Threshold accounts would be the administrator accounts, I
assume, and an attacker would need to compromise a number of those to
decrypt the database.  But it doesn't require an exact set of keys but
"anyone who is available."  I can't see an easy way to automatically
promote a threshold-less to a threshold account, but perhaps I missed
something from the paper.

Bootstrapping seems to be an issue, because a threshold of administrators
would have to help with a restart, as opposed to just one engineer
answering the 2 AM call.  The partial verification required otherwise seems
scary to me, but maybe that's just paranoia.

One other issue I see is that it cannot be used with SRP during the the
bootstrapping process, since the server won't be able to prove knowledge of
the keys unless I am missing something.  And that may also preclude SRP
from being used at all, because a server can just consistently "fake" being
in bootstrapping mode, negating the advantage of SRP.

Do these seem like legitimate issues?

Thanks,
Chris

*Christopher A. Taylor*
Software Engineer
Game Closure
(404) 561-1533


On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 9:52 PM, Justin Cappos <jcappos@....edu> wrote:

> The longer explanation is that the Shamir Secret Share stores a random
> value and that value can be used as a key for symmetric crypto.   Using
> that key, one can encrypt the salted hashes for some set of accounts.
> Since the key is protected by the threshold accounts, those accounts are
> also protected in this case.   Thus if an adversary cannot crack enough of
> the threshold accounts, they cannot crack any thresholdless accounts, even
> if they have weak passwords and the attacker can generate new accounts at
> whim.
>
> Thanks,
> Justin
>
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 4:38 PM, Justin Cappos <jcappos@....edu> wrote:
>
>> There is an option to have accounts that do not count toward the
>> threshold.   (This is the "thresholdless account" extension in the paper.)
>>
>> Sorry for the brevity, about to get on a flight...
>>
>> Justin
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 4:35 PM, Stephen Touset <stephen@...set.org>wrote:
>>
>>> Given a database that requires n shares to start validating passwords,
>>> what stops an attacker from creating n - 1 accounts with passwords under
>>> his control?
>>> --
>>> Stephen Touset
>>> stephen@...set.org
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 6:03 AM, Justin Cappos <jcappos@....edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>> The TLDR version of the scheme is as follows:
>>>>
>>>> Today password databases store: "username:salt: securehash(salt,
>>>> password)"   An attacker can crack passwords individually by guessing the
>>>> password and computing the salted secure hash.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> PolyPassHash stores: "username:salt:sharenumber: (share(sharenumber)
>>>> XOR securehash(salt, password))"   So a correct password allows the server
>>>> to obtain a share in a Shamir Secret store.   The only way to know if the
>>>> share is valid (and the password is correct) is to have a threshold of
>>>> shares.   Since a valid server gets many correct login attempts, it can
>>>> trivially do this.   The attacker needs to simultaneously guess many
>>>> accounts which increases the needed time exponentially.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Justin
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 5:34 PM, Justin Cappos <jcappos@....edu> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I would like to solicit the community's feedback about an submission
>>>>> to the PHC called PolyPassHash.
>>>>>
>>>>>  This scheme is different than most PHC entries in that it uses a
>>>>> threshold-based storage technique to prevent passwords from being
>>>>> individually cracked.   To validate a password, one must recover a share in
>>>>> a Shamir Secret Store, which necessitates knowing a threshold of correct
>>>>> passwords.   (There are extensions to allow passwords to be securely
>>>>> validated by a server upon setup and also to support accounts that do not
>>>>> count toward the threshold.)
>>>>>
>>>>> PolyPassHash gives an exponential increase in the search space an
>>>>> attacker needs to explore while only increasing the server's time by a
>>>>> small linear factor.   If you take the three passwords that are composed of
>>>>> six random characters each and protect them with PolyPassHash, to search
>>>>> the key space would take every computer on the planet working together
>>>>> longer than the universe is estimated to have existed.   PolyPassHash is
>>>>> about as efficient in terms of memory, disk, and CPU time as existing
>>>>> salted secure hash techniques.   In fact, PolyPassHash is orthogonal to the
>>>>> secure hashing technique and should integrate with (any?) other submission.
>>>>>
>>>>> More information about the scheme (including both technical
>>>>> documentation and information for a more general audience) is available at:
>>>>> https://github.com/JustinCappos/PolyPassHash
>>>>>
>>>>> There is also a Python implementation available in that repository and
>>>>> a link to the C implementation (by Santiago Torres) which will be submitted
>>>>> to the contest.
>>>>>
>>>>> I welcome any comments or feedback.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> Justin
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>

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