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Date:      Fri, 1 Jun 2001 14:19:16 -0700
From:      Kris Kennaway <kris@obsecurity.org>
To:        "Peter C. Lai" <sirmoo@cowbert.2y.net>
Cc:        freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Apache Software Foundation Server compromised, resecured. (fwd)
Message-ID:  <20010601141916.A88206@xor.obsecurity.org>
In-Reply-To: <00cc01c0eaa2$30bd7ca0$8caa6389@resnet.uconn.edu>; from sirmoo@cowbert.2y.net on Fri, Jun 01, 2001 at 09:53:08AM -0400
References:  <200105312300.f4VN0RD24448@cwsys.cwsent.com> <Pine.BSF.4.31.0105311621290.52261-100000@localhost> <20010601013041.A32818@area51.dk> <3B16D9C8.2F6CE52E@ursine.com> <00cc01c0eaa2$30bd7ca0$8caa6389@resnet.uconn.edu>

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On Fri, Jun 01, 2001 at 09:53:08AM -0400, Peter C. Lai wrote:
> usually on untrusted systems (such as a public terminal), i ssh via
> mindterm's java ssh client which is stored on the system that i access. It
> only uses SSH1 (because they haven't written an SSH2 client yet).  The java
> applet version i'm using is unsigned, and therefore should run in it's own
> sandbox wrt to the java runtime that i am using.  Barring a trojaned java
> runtime that record all keystrokes, how else is using a trusted client
> stored on a trusted machine from an untrusted terminal dangerous?

So many ways..another process running as you can
monitor/intercept/modify the operation of the JVM because there's no
protection against doing that under UNIX (the protection only exists
between different processes running as different users); the kernel,
or another process can record keystrokes (I don't know if mindterm is
a text-based client or GUI, but it doesn't matter); the client can be
trojaned without your knowledge (how did you KNOW it's "trusted"?),
etc.

You should just accept the fact that it's not possible to run trusted
software in an untrusted environment, and if the system wants to
compromise your software badly enough they can.  There have been some
interesting mathematical steps in this direction (involving computing
of a certain class of function which are "encrypted" but in an
isomorphic form, where the desired computation commutes with the
operation of encryption so the untrusted system can perform the
computation without knowing what it's doing) -- but nothing remotely
usable.

Kris

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