🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Sep26.165606.1@hamp.hampshire.edu> jyanowitz@hamp.hampshire.edu writes:
>  Given the all the reasonable hullabaloo about verifying keys, what do
>people think about, in the interim, placing copies of our keys in our
>.plan (on unix and vms) so when people finger you, they can see a copy
>of it.  Obviously, two flaws with this method are:
>a) someone could create a fake account...
>b) someone could intercept the finger requests.

This is what I was planning to do... (as soon as I check over my
PGP).  It would be possible, I suppose, to install high-speed
search-and-replace hardware on all routers.  As I don't know what
the backbone connectivity is like, I don't know how feasible this is.
Probably expensive, though I'm sure the NSA would give its eyeteeth
for that kinda setup...

It would also be easy, as you say, for any fool to set up an
"eli@bogus.nsa.int" account and post "finger me for my key!" to the
net...  but this isn't really a cryptographic problem.  This is a
problem of initial verification, which can then be maintained by
cryptographic means.  Once you're known to have an account at a
given site which is associated with "the real you", claims of new
accounts elsewhere can be checked by key comparison.  

Another attack would be to subvert everybody's finger program, as
well as everything that can telnet to the finger port.  Really, if
the spooks can trojan everybody's telnet, they can trojan everybody's
PGP too.

The brute-force attack of breaking security on my system and lying
about my .plan when fingered (a sophisticated intruder could lie
only to the fingerd, not to me checking my .plan) could be checked
for by fingering your name from another machine.  Perhaps fingerd
could provide the following feature:  if I finger the bogus user
"callback:ebrandt" at a remote site, it will finger the user
ebrandt@<my IP> and pass me the result.  This would require the
attacker to break everybody's fingerd to get me.

While this doesn't provide sufficient security, it seems marginally
more difficult to forge a .plan than to forge a Usenet posting.
Saves bandwidth too.  :-)   (This could become significant when and
if people start attaching a slew of certifications.)

So, what grievous hole have I missed?

>Jason
>jyanowitz@hamp.hampshire.edu

   Eli   ebrandt@jarthur.claremont.edu