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Date:      Mon, 26 Feb 1996 07:51:06 -0800 (PST)
From:      "az.com" <yankee@anna.az.com>
To:        Ollivier Robert <roberto@keltia.freenix.fr>
Cc:        Ng Pheng Siong <ngps@cbn.com.sg>, james@teamos2.org, rashid@rk.ios.com, taob@io.org, freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Informing users of cracked passwords?
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.91.960226071728.2045A-100000@anna.az.com>
In-Reply-To: <199602260747.IAA05354@keltia.freenix.fr>

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Perhaps it would be nice project to try to upgrade FreeBSD's password
authentication and add an option which would move it away from the host
and onto a separate system and also allow it to check for qualified
passwords. The system's design would make it impossible in any way for
even the owner of the authentication server to know what the real or
encrypted version of the passwords were.  (The first idea is similar to
cisco TACACS or XYLOGICS Annex's ACP_PASSWD, the second idea is mine (or
undoubtedly someone else's too?)) This system would be a
'drop-in-replacement' like kerberos that would go a step further and offer
a super-huge DES like key that 'could not' be decrypted by any future
super computer. It would use an encrypted handshaking scheme, moving time
synchronization scheme, and even a unique mutating algorithm scheme that
would make it immune to sniffing and hacking of all kinds. The changing
algorithm(s) and/or the flavors in use on any particular password entry
would again, not be viewable by even the owner of the authentication
server. This system might require a chip on the authentication server used
to randomly select the encryption formats and handshaking keys in case
someone broke open and physically read the server's media, although I
think something pretty good could be designed in software with enough
effort. 

I realize this idea is in left field and does not follow the single-system
model, but for bigger organizations who can afford a separate system, it
should be at least added to unix as an alternative to the shadow password
file and get password entry routines, etc. I know that similar things
already exist, but I know of no 'drop-in-replacement' like this that can
go right into a running unix system like kerberos or nis, etc. 

In addition, it would be nice if a set of special additional changing keys
were granted by the server that could be used for things like optional
decrypting/encrypting all data read/written from the file systems for a
particular UID.


On Mon, 26 Feb 1996, Ollivier Robert wrote:

> It seems that Ng Pheng Siong said:
> > 
> > I believe ANLpasswd is an improvement on that.
> 
> Except that it does   not support shadowing schemes.  I  had to hack  it to
> support Sun's /etc/security/*.adjuct   files. The same  has  to be done  to
> support /etc/master.passwd and the new fields in it.
> -- 
> Ollivier ROBERT    -=- The daemon is FREE! -=-    roberto@keltia.frmug.fr.net
>    FreeBSD keltia.freenix.fr 2.2-CURRENT #1: Tue Feb 20 01:16:51 MET 1996
> 



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