From owner-freebsd-security Sat Dec 14 06:16:04 1996 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) id GAA00663 for security-outgoing; Sat, 14 Dec 1996 06:16:04 -0800 (PST) Received: from sovcom.kiae.su (sovcom.kiae.su [193.125.152.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) with SMTP id GAA00632; Sat, 14 Dec 1996 06:15:58 -0800 (PST) Received: by sovcom.kiae.su id AA28924 (5.65.kiae-1 ); Sat, 14 Dec 1996 16:54:21 +0300 Received: by sovcom.KIAE.su (UUMAIL/2.0); Sat, 14 Dec 96 16:54:21 +0300 Received: from localhost (nagual.ru [127.0.0.1]) by nagual.ru (8.8.4/8.8.4) with SMTP id QAA00442; Sat, 14 Dec 1996 16:51:09 +0300 (MSK) Date: Sat, 14 Dec 1996 16:51:08 +0300 (MSK) From: =?KOI8-R?Q?=E1=CE=C4=D2=C5=CA_=FE=C5=D2=CE=CF=D7=2C_Andrey_Chernov?= To: Julian Assange Cc: security@freebsd.org, hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: vulnerability in new pw suite In-Reply-To: <199612140135.MAA04639@profane.iq.org> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-security@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Sat, 14 Dec 1996, Julian Assange wrote: > The FreeBSD account administration pw suite is able to produce > "random" passwords for new accounts. Due to the simplicity of the > password generation algorithm involved, the passwords are easily > predictable amid a particular range of possibilities. This range > may be very narrow, depending on what sort of information is > available to the attacker. I agree on this subj. but I wonder about method you use, it is unnecessary complex, reading /dev/urandom will be enough without MD5 hashing. /dev/urandom not optional device, so if it isn't exists or not give enough bytes it must be detected as program failure and not covered by MD5 workaround. random() must be replaced with /dev/urandom reading, because password length will be easily predicted too. -- Andrey A. Chernov http://www.nagual.ru/~ache/