Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 13:16:46 +0930 From: Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@FreeBSD.org> To: Jordan Hubbard <jkh@winston.freebsd.org> Cc: Robert Watson <rwatson@FreeBSD.ORG>, Oscar Bonilla <obonilla@galileo.edu>, Anthony Schneider <aschneid@mail.slc.edu>, Mike Meyer <mwm-dated-1019955884.8b118e@mired.org>, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Security through obscurity? (was: ssh + compiled-in SKEY support considered harmful?) Message-ID: <20020423131646.I6425@wantadilla.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <11670.1019530386@winston.freebsd.org> References: <rwatson@FreeBSD.ORG> <Pine.NEB.3.96L.1020422223923.64976i-100000@fledge.watson.org> <11670.1019530386@winston.freebsd.org>
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On Monday, 22 April 2002 at 19:53:06 -0700, Jordan Hubbard wrote:
>> That fix relies on the extensive PAM updates in -CURRENT however; in
>> -STABLE it can probably be similarly replicated via appropriate tweaking
>> of sshd (?).
>
> Why not fix it in stable by the very simple tweaking of the
> ChallengeResponseAuthentication to no in the sshd config file we ship
> Trust me, this question is going to come up a _lot_ for us otherwise. :(
I've been noticing a continuing trend for more and more "safe"
configurations the default. I spent half a day recently trying to
find why I could no longer open windows on my X display, only to
discover that somebody had turned off tcp connections by default.
I have a problem with this, and as you imply, so will a lot of other
people. As a result of this sort of thing, people trying to migrate
from other systems will probably just give up. I certainly would
have. While it's a laudable aim to have a secure system, you have to
be able to use it too. I'd suggest that we do the following:
1. Give the user the choice of these additional features at
installation time. Recommend the procedures, but explain that you
need to understand the differences.
2. Document these things very well. Both this ssh change and the X
without TCP change are confusing. If three core team members were
surprised, it's going to surprise the end user a whole lot more.
We should at least have had a HEADS UP, and we probably need a
security policy document with the distributions.
Greg
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