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1.10      deraadt     4: <title>Cryptography in OpenBSD</title>
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1.10      deraadt     7: <meta name="description" content="OpenBSD cryptography">
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1.22      deraadt    14: <img alt="[OpenBSD]" height=200 width=200 SRC="images/blowfish.jpg">
1.37      deraadt    15: <p>
                     16: <h2><font color=#e00000>Cryptography</font><hr></h2>
1.32      deraadt    17:
                     18: <strong>Index</strong><br>
                     19: <a href=#why>Why do we ship cryptography?</a>.<br>
                     20: <a href=#prng>Pseudo Random Number Generators</a> (PRNG): ARC4, ...<br>
                     21: <a href=#hash>Cryptographic Hash Functions</a>: MD5, SHA1, ...<br>
                     22: <a href=#trans>Cryptographic Transforms</a>: DES, Blowfish, ...<br>
                     23:
                     24: <a href=#people>International Cryptographers wanted</a><br>
1.33      deraadt    25: <a href=#papers>Further Reading</a><br>
1.1       deraadt    26: <p>
1.32      deraadt    27: <hr>
                     28:
                     29: <dl>
                     30: <a name=why></a>
1.37      deraadt    31: <li><h3><font color=#e00000>Why do we ship cryptography?</font></h3><p>
1.32      deraadt    32:
                     33: In three words:  <strong>because we can</strong>.<p>
                     34:
1.1       deraadt    35: The OpenBSD project is based in Canada.<p>
                     36:
1.23      deraadt    37: The <a href=ECL.html>Export Control List of Canada</a>
                     38: places no significant restriction on the export of
1.5       deraadt    39: cryptographic software, and is even more explicit about the free
                     40: export of freely-available cryptographic software.  Marc Plumb has
                     41: done
1.2       deraadt    42: <a href=http://insight.mcmaster.ca/org/efc/pages/doc/crypto-export.html>
1.31      aaron      43: some research to test the cryptographic laws</a>.
1.2       deraadt    44: <p>
1.1       deraadt    45:
1.3       deraadt    46: Hence the OpenBSD project has embedded cryptography into numerous places
                     47: in the operating system.  We require that the cryptographic software we
                     48: use be <a href=policy.html>freely available and with good licenses</a>.
1.32      deraadt    49: We do not directly use cryptography with nasty patents.
1.13      deraadt    50: We also require that such software is from countries with useful export
1.16      deraadt    51: licenses because we do not wish to break the laws of any country.
                     52: The cryptographic software components which we use currently were
                     53: written in Argentina, Australia, Canada, Germany, Greece, Norway, and
                     54: Sweden.
                     55: <p>
1.7       deraadt    56:
1.15      deraadt    57: When we create OpenBSD releases or snapshots we build our release
                     58: binaries in free countries to assure that the sources and binaries we
                     59: provide to users are free of tainting.  In the past our release binary
                     60: builds have been done in Canada, Sweden, and Germany.<p>
                     61:
1.16      deraadt    62: OpenBSD ships with Kerberos IV included.  The codebase we use is the
1.17      deraadt    63: exportable KTH-based release from Sweden.  Our X11 source has been
                     64: extended to make use of Kerberos IV as well.  Kerberos V support will
1.16      deraadt    65: perhaps appear in 1999, but at present time a freely exportable
                     66: Kerberos V release does not exist.<p>
                     67:
1.15      deraadt    68: Today cryptography is an important means for enhancing the <a
                     69: href=security.html>security</a> of an operating system.  The
                     70: cryptography utilized in OpenBSD can be classified into three
1.33      deraadt    71: different aspects, which will be described later.<p>
1.10      deraadt    72:
                     73: <p>
1.18      deraadt    74: <a name=prng></a>
1.37      deraadt    75: <li><h3><font color=#e00000>Pseudo Random Number Generators</font></h3><p>
1.32      deraadt    76:
1.10      deraadt    77: A Pseudo Random Number Generator (PRNG) provides applications with a stream of
                     78: numbers which have certain important properties for system security:<p>
                     79:
                     80: <ul>
1.11      deraadt    81: <li>It should be impossible for an outsider to predict the output of the
                     82:        random number generator even with knowledge of previous output.
                     83: <li>The generated numbers should not have repeating patterns which means
                     84:        the PRNG should have a very long cycle length.
1.10      deraadt    85: </ul>
1.32      deraadt    86: <p>
1.10      deraadt    87:
1.13      deraadt    88: A PRNG is normally just an algorithm where the same initial starting
                     89: values will yield the same sequence of outputs. On a multiuser
                     90: operating system there are many sources which allow seeding the PRNG
                     91: with random data. The OpenBSD kernel uses the mouse interrupt timing,
                     92: network data interrupt latency, inter-keypress timing and disk IO
                     93: information to fill an entropy pool.  Random numbers are available for
                     94: kernel routines and are exported via devices to userland programs.
1.36      deraadt    95: So far random numbers are used in the following places:<p>
1.13      deraadt    96:
1.10      deraadt    97: <ul>
1.14      deraadt    98: <li>Dynamic sin_port allocation in bind(2).
                     99: <li>PIDs of processes.
1.26      aaron     100: <li>IP datagram IDs.
1.14      deraadt   101: <li>RPC transaction IDs (XID).
                    102: <li>NFS RPC transaction IDs (XID).
                    103: <li>DNS Query-IDs.
                    104: <li>Inode generation numbers, see getfh(2) and fsirand(8).
1.31      aaron     105: <li>Timing perturbance in traceroute(8).
1.14      deraadt   106: <li>Stronger temporary names for mktemp(3) and mkstemp(3)
                    107: <li>Randomness added to the TCP ISS value for protection against
                    108:        spoofing attacks.
1.29      deraadt   109: <li>random padding in IPSEC esp_old packets.
1.14      deraadt   110: <li>To generate salts for the various password algorithms.
                    111: <li>For generating fake S/Key challenges.
1.28      angelos   112: <li>In <a href=http://wserver.physnet.uni-hamburg.de/provos/photuris/>photurisd</a>
                    113:         and <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=isakmpd>isakmpd</a>
                    114:        to provide liveness proof of key exchanges.
1.10      deraadt   115: </ul>
1.1       deraadt   116:
1.10      deraadt   117: <p>
1.18      deraadt   118: <a name=hash></a>
1.37      deraadt   119: <li><h3><font color=#e00000>Cryptographic Hash Functions</font></h3><p>
1.32      deraadt   120:
1.10      deraadt   121: A Hash Function compresses its input data to a string of
1.36      deraadt   122: constant size. For a Cryptographic Hash Function it is infeasible to find:
                    123:
1.1       deraadt   124: <ul>
1.11      deraadt   125: <li>two inputs which have the same output (collision resistant),
                    126: <li>a different input for a given input with the same output
                    127:        (2nd preimage resistant).
1.1       deraadt   128: </ul>
1.32      deraadt   129: <p>
1.10      deraadt   130:
1.12      millert   131: In OpenBSD MD5, SHA1, and RIPEMD-160 are used as Cryptographic Hash Functions,
1.36      deraadt   132: e.g:<p>
1.10      deraadt   133: <ul>
1.27      deraadt   134: <li>In <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=skey>S/Key</a>
                    135:     to provide one time passwords.
                    136: <li>In <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=ipsec>IPsec</a>,
                    137:     <a href=http://wserver.physnet.uni-hamburg.de/provos/photuris/>photurisd</a>
                    138:     and
                    139:     <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=isakmpd>isakmpd(8)</a>
                    140:     to authenticate the data origin of packets and to ensure packet integrity.
                    141: <li>For FreeBSD-style MD5 passwords (not enabled by default), see
                    142:     <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=passwd.conf&sektion=5>
                    143:     passwd.conf(5)</a>
                    144: <li>For TCP SYN cookie support (not enabled by default), see
                    145:     <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=options&sektion=4>
                    146:     options(4)</a>
1.24      niklas    147: <li>In libssl for digital signing of messages.
1.10      deraadt   148: </ul>
1.32      deraadt   149: <p>
1.10      deraadt   150:
1.6       deraadt   151: <p>
1.18      deraadt   152: <a name=trans></a>
1.37      deraadt   153: <li><h3><font color=#e00000>Cryptographic Transforms</font></h3><p>
1.32      deraadt   154:
1.11      deraadt   155: Cryptographic Transforms are used to encrypt and decrypt data. These
                    156: are normally used with an encryption key for data encryption and with
                    157: a decryption key for data decryption. The security of a Cryptographic
                    158: Transform should rely only on the keying material.<p>
1.6       deraadt   159:
1.24      niklas    160: OpenBSD provides transforms like DES, 3DES, Blowfish and Cast for the
1.36      deraadt   161: kernel and userland programs, which are used in many places like:<p>
1.10      deraadt   162: <ul>
1.27      deraadt   163: <li>In libc for creating
                    164:     <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=blf_key>Blowfish</a>
1.33      deraadt   165:     passwords.  See also the <a href=papers/bcrypt-paper.ps>USENIX paper</a>
                    166:     on this topic.
1.27      deraadt   167: <li>In
                    168:     <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=ipsec>IPsec</a>
                    169:     to provide confidentiality for the network layer.
                    170: <li>In Kerberos and a handful of kerberized applications, like
                    171:     <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=telnet>telnet</a>,
                    172:     <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=cvs>cvs</a>,
                    173:     <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=rsh>rsh</a>,
                    174:     <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=rcp>rcp</a>,
                    175:     and
                    176:     <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=rlogin>rlogin</a>.
1.24      niklas    177: <li>In <a href=http://wserver.physnet.uni-hamburg.de/provos/photuris/>
1.27      deraadt   178:     photurisd</a> and
                    179:     <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=isakmpd>isakmpd</a>
                    180:     to protect the exchanges where IPsec key material is negotiated.
1.24      niklas    181: <li>In AFS to protect the messages passing over the network, providing
1.27      deraadt   182:     confidentiality of remote filesystem access.
1.24      niklas    183: <li>In libssl to let applications communicate over the de-facto standard
                    184:        cryptographically secure SSL protocol.
1.10      deraadt   185: </ul>
1.1       deraadt   186:
1.10      deraadt   187: <p>
1.32      deraadt   188: <a name=people></a>
1.37      deraadt   189: <li><h3><font color=#e00000>International Cryptographers Wanted</font></h3><p>
1.32      deraadt   190:
                    191: Of course, our project needs people to work on these systems.  If any
                    192: non-American cryptographer who meets the constraints listed earlier is
                    193: interested in helping out with embedded cryptography in OpenBSD,
                    194: please contact us.<p>
                    195:
1.33      deraadt   196: <p>
                    197: <a name=papers></a>
1.37      deraadt   198: <li><h3><font color=#e00000>Further Reading</font></h3><p>
1.33      deraadt   199:
                    200: A number of papers have been written by OpenBSD team members, about
                    201: cryptographic changes they have done in OpenBSD.  The postscript
1.34      deraadt   202: versions of these documents are available as follows.<p>
1.33      deraadt   203:
                    204: <ul>
                    205: <li>A Future-Adaptable Password Scheme
                    206:     Niels Provos, David Mazieres.<br>
                    207:     <a href=papers/bcrypt-paper.ps>paper</a> and
                    208:     <a href=papers/bcrypt-slides.ps>slides</a>.
                    209: <li>Cryptography in OpenBSD: An Overview<br>
                    210:     Theo de Raadt, Niklas Hallqvist, Artur Grabowski,
                    211:     Angelos D. Keromytis, Niels Provos.<br>
                    212:     <a href=papers/crypt-paper.ps>paper</a> and
                    213:     <a href=papers/crypt-slides.ps>slides</a>.
                    214: </ul>
                    215:
1.32      deraadt   216: </dl>
                    217:
                    218: <p>
1.1       deraadt   219: <hr>
1.19      pauls     220: <a href=/index.html><img height=24 width=24 src=back.gif border=0 alt=OpenBSD></a>
1.10      deraadt   221: <a href=mailto:www@openbsd.org>www@openbsd.org</a>
                    222: <br>
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