{"id":8578,"date":"2014-03-20T15:44:29","date_gmt":"2014-03-20T19:44:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=8578"},"modified":"2018-03-09T13:51:24","modified_gmt":"2018-03-09T18:51:24","slug":"attacking-the-random-number-generator-not-the-algorithm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2014\/03\/20\/attacking-the-random-number-generator-not-the-algorithm\/","title":{"rendered":"Attacking the Random Number Generator, Not the Algorithm"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.cryptographyengineering.com\/2014\/03\/how-do-you-know-if-rng-is-working.html\">Matthew Green<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"http:\/\/blog.cryptographyengineering.com\/2014\/03\/how-do-you-know-if-rng-is-working.html\"><p>What this means is that an attacker who can predict the output of your RNG&mdash;perhaps by taking advantage of a bug, or even compromising it at a design level&mdash;can often <i>completely decrypt<\/i>&nbsp;your communications. The Debian project <a href=\"https:\/\/www.schneier.com\/blog\/archives\/2008\/05\/random_number_b.html\">learned this firsthand<\/a>, as have <a href=\"http:\/\/nakedsecurity.sophos.com\/2013\/08\/12\/android-random-number-flaw-implicated-in-bitcoin-thefts\/\">many others<\/a>. This certainly hasn&rsquo;t escaped NSA&rsquo;s notice, if the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/2013\/12\/21\/us-usa-security-rsa-idUSBRE9BJ1C220131221\">allegations<\/a> regarding its <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.cryptographyengineering.com\/2013\/09\/the-many-flaws-of-dualecdrbg.html\">Dual EC<\/a> random number generator are true.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, so far all I&rsquo;ve done is call out the challenges with building trustworthy RNGs. And there&rsquo;s a reason for this: the challenges are easy to identify, while the solutions themselves are hard. And unfortunately at this time, they&rsquo;re quite manual.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Solving this problem, at least in software, so we can ensure that code is correct and does not contain hidden &lsquo;easter eggs&rsquo;, represents one of the more significant research challenges facing those of us who depend on secure cryptographic primitives.<\/p><\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Matthew Green: What this means is that an attacker who can predict the output of your RNG&mdash;perhaps by taking advantage of a bug, or even compromising it at a design level&mdash;can often completely decrypt&nbsp;your communications. The Debian project learned this firsthand, as have many others. This certainly hasn&rsquo;t escaped NSA&rsquo;s notice, if the allegations regarding [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1639,813,48],"class_list":["post-8578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-easter-eggs","tag-random-numbers","tag-security"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8578"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20846,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8578\/revisions\/20846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}