'we should all be uncomfortable with the extent to which luck ..'

Thu Jul 26 00:30:01 UTC 2001

On Wed, Jul 25, 2001 at 02:09:44PM -0700, Majdi S. Abbas wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Jul 25, 2001 at 02:45:44PM -0400, David Shaw wrote:
> > telnetd is not inherently bad.  It is a tool that is lacking the
> > session encryption and strong authentication features of SSH, but is
> > still useful in some cases.  Like any tool it can be used poorly, but
> > that is not the fault of the tool.
> 
> 	Agreed.
> 
> > For example, when traveling, I can log in securely from any random
> > Internet cafe using OPIE or S/Key one-time passwords via telnet.  SSH
> > requires that you trust your local machine, and OPIE assumes that you
> > don't.
> 
> 	Incorrect.  OPIE assumes complete trust of your local machine,
> but not the network.  You still have to generate the hashes using your
> password.

Not at all.  You don't have to generate the hashes on your local
machine.  Most people using OPIE (or any one-time password scheme)
have a hardware device (i.e. Palm Pilot) to calculate the hashes.  As
you say, it would be rather silly to calculate the hashes on the
untrusted machine!

David

-- 
   David Shaw  |  dshaw at jabberwocky.com  |  WWW http://www.jabberwocky.com/
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   "There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX.
      We don't believe this to be a coincidence." - Jeremy S. Anderson