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1.10      deraadt     4: <title>Cryptography in OpenBSD</title>
1.1       deraadt     5: <link rev=made href=mailto:www@openbsd.org>
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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>
1.39    ! louis      19: <a href=#ssh>SSH soon built into OpenBSD base code</a>.<br>
1.32      deraadt    20: <a href=#why>Why do we ship cryptography?</a>.<br>
                     21: <a href=#prng>Pseudo Random Number Generators</a> (PRNG): ARC4, ...<br>
                     22: <a href=#hash>Cryptographic Hash Functions</a>: MD5, SHA1, ...<br>
                     23: <a href=#trans>Cryptographic Transforms</a>: DES, Blowfish, ...<br>
                     24:
                     25: <a href=#people>International Cryptographers wanted</a><br>
1.33      deraadt    26: <a href=#papers>Further Reading</a><br>
1.1       deraadt    27: <p>
1.32      deraadt    28: <hr>
                     29:
                     30: <dl>
                     31: <a name=why></a>
1.37      deraadt    32: <li><h3><font color=#e00000>Why do we ship cryptography?</font></h3><p>
1.32      deraadt    33:
                     34: In three words:  <strong>because we can</strong>.<p>
                     35:
1.1       deraadt    36: The OpenBSD project is based in Canada.<p>
                     37:
1.23      deraadt    38: The <a href=ECL.html>Export Control List of Canada</a>
                     39: places no significant restriction on the export of
1.5       deraadt    40: cryptographic software, and is even more explicit about the free
                     41: export of freely-available cryptographic software.  Marc Plumb has
                     42: done
1.2       deraadt    43: <a href=http://insight.mcmaster.ca/org/efc/pages/doc/crypto-export.html>
1.31      aaron      44: some research to test the cryptographic laws</a>.
1.2       deraadt    45: <p>
1.1       deraadt    46:
1.3       deraadt    47: Hence the OpenBSD project has embedded cryptography into numerous places
                     48: in the operating system.  We require that the cryptographic software we
                     49: use be <a href=policy.html>freely available and with good licenses</a>.
1.32      deraadt    50: We do not directly use cryptography with nasty patents.
1.13      deraadt    51: We also require that such software is from countries with useful export
1.16      deraadt    52: licenses because we do not wish to break the laws of any country.
                     53: The cryptographic software components which we use currently were
                     54: written in Argentina, Australia, Canada, Germany, Greece, Norway, and
                     55: Sweden.
                     56: <p>
1.7       deraadt    57:
1.15      deraadt    58: When we create OpenBSD releases or snapshots we build our release
                     59: binaries in free countries to assure that the sources and binaries we
                     60: provide to users are free of tainting.  In the past our release binary
                     61: builds have been done in Canada, Sweden, and Germany.<p>
                     62:
1.16      deraadt    63: OpenBSD ships with Kerberos IV included.  The codebase we use is the
1.17      deraadt    64: exportable KTH-based release from Sweden.  Our X11 source has been
                     65: extended to make use of Kerberos IV as well.  Kerberos V support will
1.16      deraadt    66: perhaps appear in 1999, but at present time a freely exportable
                     67: Kerberos V release does not exist.<p>
                     68:
1.15      deraadt    69: Today cryptography is an important means for enhancing the <a
                     70: href=security.html>security</a> of an operating system.  The
                     71: cryptography utilized in OpenBSD can be classified into three
1.33      deraadt    72: different aspects, which will be described later.<p>
1.10      deraadt    73:
1.39    ! louis      74: <dl>
        !            75: <a name=ssh></a>
        !            76: <li><h3><font color=#e00000>SSH soon built into OpenBSD base code</font></h3><p>
        !            77:
        !            78: What do most people do right after they install OpenBSD?<p>
        !            79: They install Secure Shell (SSH) from the ports tree or the packages on
        !            80: the CD-ROM. Until now, that is.<p>
        !            81:
        !            82: This is still very much a work in progress, but we found an innovative way
        !            83: around the RSA patent. We are taking a free license release of SSH and
        !            84: OpenBSD-ifying it.<p>
        !            85:
        !            86: We get around the US-based RSA patent by letting end users
        !            87: selectively download the correct libssl file for their location (US resident
        !            88: or not).<p>
        !            89:
1.10      deraadt    90: <p>
1.18      deraadt    91: <a name=prng></a>
1.37      deraadt    92: <li><h3><font color=#e00000>Pseudo Random Number Generators</font></h3><p>
1.32      deraadt    93:
1.10      deraadt    94: A Pseudo Random Number Generator (PRNG) provides applications with a stream of
                     95: numbers which have certain important properties for system security:<p>
                     96:
                     97: <ul>
1.11      deraadt    98: <li>It should be impossible for an outsider to predict the output of the
                     99:        random number generator even with knowledge of previous output.
                    100: <li>The generated numbers should not have repeating patterns which means
                    101:        the PRNG should have a very long cycle length.
1.10      deraadt   102: </ul>
1.32      deraadt   103: <p>
1.10      deraadt   104:
1.13      deraadt   105: A PRNG is normally just an algorithm where the same initial starting
                    106: values will yield the same sequence of outputs. On a multiuser
                    107: operating system there are many sources which allow seeding the PRNG
                    108: with random data. The OpenBSD kernel uses the mouse interrupt timing,
                    109: network data interrupt latency, inter-keypress timing and disk IO
                    110: information to fill an entropy pool.  Random numbers are available for
                    111: kernel routines and are exported via devices to userland programs.
1.36      deraadt   112: So far random numbers are used in the following places:<p>
1.13      deraadt   113:
1.10      deraadt   114: <ul>
1.14      deraadt   115: <li>Dynamic sin_port allocation in bind(2).
                    116: <li>PIDs of processes.
1.26      aaron     117: <li>IP datagram IDs.
1.14      deraadt   118: <li>RPC transaction IDs (XID).
                    119: <li>NFS RPC transaction IDs (XID).
                    120: <li>DNS Query-IDs.
                    121: <li>Inode generation numbers, see getfh(2) and fsirand(8).
1.31      aaron     122: <li>Timing perturbance in traceroute(8).
1.14      deraadt   123: <li>Stronger temporary names for mktemp(3) and mkstemp(3)
                    124: <li>Randomness added to the TCP ISS value for protection against
                    125:        spoofing attacks.
1.29      deraadt   126: <li>random padding in IPSEC esp_old packets.
1.14      deraadt   127: <li>To generate salts for the various password algorithms.
                    128: <li>For generating fake S/Key challenges.
1.28      angelos   129: <li>In <a href=http://wserver.physnet.uni-hamburg.de/provos/photuris/>photurisd</a>
                    130:         and <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=isakmpd>isakmpd</a>
                    131:        to provide liveness proof of key exchanges.
1.10      deraadt   132: </ul>
1.1       deraadt   133:
1.10      deraadt   134: <p>
1.18      deraadt   135: <a name=hash></a>
1.37      deraadt   136: <li><h3><font color=#e00000>Cryptographic Hash Functions</font></h3><p>
1.32      deraadt   137:
1.10      deraadt   138: A Hash Function compresses its input data to a string of
1.36      deraadt   139: constant size. For a Cryptographic Hash Function it is infeasible to find:
                    140:
1.1       deraadt   141: <ul>
1.11      deraadt   142: <li>two inputs which have the same output (collision resistant),
                    143: <li>a different input for a given input with the same output
                    144:        (2nd preimage resistant).
1.1       deraadt   145: </ul>
1.32      deraadt   146: <p>
1.10      deraadt   147:
1.12      millert   148: In OpenBSD MD5, SHA1, and RIPEMD-160 are used as Cryptographic Hash Functions,
1.36      deraadt   149: e.g:<p>
1.10      deraadt   150: <ul>
1.27      deraadt   151: <li>In <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=skey>S/Key</a>
                    152:     to provide one time passwords.
                    153: <li>In <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=ipsec>IPsec</a>,
                    154:     <a href=http://wserver.physnet.uni-hamburg.de/provos/photuris/>photurisd</a>
                    155:     and
                    156:     <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=isakmpd>isakmpd(8)</a>
                    157:     to authenticate the data origin of packets and to ensure packet integrity.
                    158: <li>For FreeBSD-style MD5 passwords (not enabled by default), see
                    159:     <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=passwd.conf&sektion=5>
                    160:     passwd.conf(5)</a>
                    161: <li>For TCP SYN cookie support (not enabled by default), see
                    162:     <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=options&sektion=4>
                    163:     options(4)</a>
1.24      niklas    164: <li>In libssl for digital signing of messages.
1.10      deraadt   165: </ul>
1.32      deraadt   166: <p>
1.10      deraadt   167:
1.6       deraadt   168: <p>
1.18      deraadt   169: <a name=trans></a>
1.37      deraadt   170: <li><h3><font color=#e00000>Cryptographic Transforms</font></h3><p>
1.32      deraadt   171:
1.11      deraadt   172: Cryptographic Transforms are used to encrypt and decrypt data. These
                    173: are normally used with an encryption key for data encryption and with
                    174: a decryption key for data decryption. The security of a Cryptographic
                    175: Transform should rely only on the keying material.<p>
1.6       deraadt   176:
1.24      niklas    177: OpenBSD provides transforms like DES, 3DES, Blowfish and Cast for the
1.36      deraadt   178: kernel and userland programs, which are used in many places like:<p>
1.10      deraadt   179: <ul>
1.27      deraadt   180: <li>In libc for creating
                    181:     <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=blf_key>Blowfish</a>
1.33      deraadt   182:     passwords.  See also the <a href=papers/bcrypt-paper.ps>USENIX paper</a>
                    183:     on this topic.
1.27      deraadt   184: <li>In
                    185:     <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=ipsec>IPsec</a>
                    186:     to provide confidentiality for the network layer.
                    187: <li>In Kerberos and a handful of kerberized applications, like
                    188:     <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=telnet>telnet</a>,
                    189:     <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=cvs>cvs</a>,
                    190:     <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=rsh>rsh</a>,
                    191:     <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=rcp>rcp</a>,
                    192:     and
                    193:     <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=rlogin>rlogin</a>.
1.24      niklas    194: <li>In <a href=http://wserver.physnet.uni-hamburg.de/provos/photuris/>
1.27      deraadt   195:     photurisd</a> and
                    196:     <a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=isakmpd>isakmpd</a>
                    197:     to protect the exchanges where IPsec key material is negotiated.
1.24      niklas    198: <li>In AFS to protect the messages passing over the network, providing
1.27      deraadt   199:     confidentiality of remote filesystem access.
1.24      niklas    200: <li>In libssl to let applications communicate over the de-facto standard
                    201:        cryptographically secure SSL protocol.
1.10      deraadt   202: </ul>
1.1       deraadt   203:
1.10      deraadt   204: <p>
1.32      deraadt   205: <a name=people></a>
1.37      deraadt   206: <li><h3><font color=#e00000>International Cryptographers Wanted</font></h3><p>
1.32      deraadt   207:
                    208: Of course, our project needs people to work on these systems.  If any
                    209: non-American cryptographer who meets the constraints listed earlier is
                    210: interested in helping out with embedded cryptography in OpenBSD,
                    211: please contact us.<p>
                    212:
1.33      deraadt   213: <p>
                    214: <a name=papers></a>
1.37      deraadt   215: <li><h3><font color=#e00000>Further Reading</font></h3><p>
1.33      deraadt   216:
                    217: A number of papers have been written by OpenBSD team members, about
                    218: cryptographic changes they have done in OpenBSD.  The postscript
1.34      deraadt   219: versions of these documents are available as follows.<p>
1.33      deraadt   220:
                    221: <ul>
                    222: <li>A Future-Adaptable Password Scheme
                    223:     Niels Provos, David Mazieres.<br>
                    224:     <a href=papers/bcrypt-paper.ps>paper</a> and
                    225:     <a href=papers/bcrypt-slides.ps>slides</a>.
                    226: <li>Cryptography in OpenBSD: An Overview<br>
                    227:     Theo de Raadt, Niklas Hallqvist, Artur Grabowski,
                    228:     Angelos D. Keromytis, Niels Provos.<br>
                    229:     <a href=papers/crypt-paper.ps>paper</a> and
                    230:     <a href=papers/crypt-slides.ps>slides</a>.
                    231: </ul>
                    232:
1.32      deraadt   233: </dl>
                    234:
                    235: <p>
1.1       deraadt   236: <hr>
1.19      pauls     237: <a href=/index.html><img height=24 width=24 src=back.gif border=0 alt=OpenBSD></a>
1.10      deraadt   238: <a href=mailto:www@openbsd.org>www@openbsd.org</a>
                    239: <br>
1.39    ! louis     240: <small>$OpenBSD: crypto.html,v 1.38 1999/09/23 20:21:23 aaron Exp $</small>
1.1       deraadt   241:
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