Re: store passwords securely in the internet

[krymson () gmail com]

I have no disagreements with what you've said, but keep in mind this thread is from 6 months ago. 

I've re-posted the OP question and my full response below. I said I wouldn't use such a public system, and the use-case 
I had in mind for the part of, "if I needed to," was something like an emergency or personal crisis of some sort.

Just being anal in clarifying, while masking my annoyance at the outdated re-postings being spewed out...


<- snip ->
I note that the subject of this email itself is inherently contradictory 
(or, at least, simply not a good idea)... anyway, rest of my reply is 
properly inline...

On 04/08/2010 10:52 AM, krymson (at) gmail (dot) com [email concealed] wrote:
> You're still going to have to ultimately trust the server that is
> doing the https/ssl termination.

And if you don't control it, don't trust it.

> If I personally need to do something like this, I prefer to have
> something like a passwordsafe database stored somewhere that I can
> retrieve securely,

Like a flash drive on your keychain or in your wallet containing an 
encrypted password db (say, keepass).

> For systems I don't control like an internet cafe or library,

You don't use them, except to read non-login public sites. Browse 
slashdot all you want from a public terminal, but don't check your 
email. That's what MID's are for.

> terminal. And even if I needed to, I'd prefer to just remember them
> if they're that important that I'd need them.

And if that's the case, then you remember them, type it in at the 
terminal, and get p0wn3d by the script kiddie who dropped a hardware 
keystroke logger inline on the keyboard cable.

-- 
Matthew Caron
Build Engineer
Sixnet | www.sixnet.com
O +1 518 877 5173 Ext. 138
F +1 518 602 9209
matt.caron (at) sixnet (dot) com [email concealed]

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<- another snip ->

You're still going to have to ultimately trust the server that is doing the https/ssl termination. Not only might it 
hook before the encryption takes place, but it will have access to the keys and could just mitm you when you bring a 
decrypted password down to your local system over SSL.

If I personally need to do something like this, I prefer to have something like a passwordsafe database stored 
somewhere that I can retrieve securely, and then open it and retrieve my passwords on my system. Or smaller databases 
with a set of credentials that I may ever want remotely, rather than the whole set.

For systems I don't control like an internet cafe or library, I wouldn't want to be using those passwords anyway on 
such a public terminal. And even if I needed to, I'd prefer to just remember them if they're that important that I'd 
need them.

<- snip ->

Hi guys,

I've written a program to store your passwords secure in a container on 
a server. It's written for the Horde framework and is called eleusis ( 
http://h4des.org/index.php?inhalt=eleusis ). The idea was to have your 
passwords everytime available when you are online even when you are 
using an internet cafe or a pc at work.

When the user creates a passwordstore, he must give a masterpassword. 
With this masterpassword every password you want to save will encrypt 
with blowfish. For every step (reading, writing) you have to enter the 
masterpassword, because nothing will write unencrypted to the hard disk. 
The masterpassword is never stored. When the user entered the 
masterpassword, the program will decrypt the container and check the 
header. If the header is correctly decrypted, the program will continue 
its work, if not, it will show you an error message.

The whole project is written in php. A weak point of the program is the 
http protocol. When the user doesn't use https to transfer the data the 
passwords will send decrypted over the net.

I hope there is any use for this program and I'm glad if anyone of you 
send me any critics or suggestions.

Regards

--

Andre Pawlowski

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