Message-ID: <53F3DFF7.9070709@jrn.me.uk>
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2014 00:38:31 +0100
From: J Ross Nicoll <jrn@jrn.me.uk>
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To: Johnathan Corgan <johnathan@corganlabs.com>, 
	Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell@gmail.com>,
	Justus Ranvier <justusranvier@riseup.net>
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	<53F38AC9.4000608@corganlabs.com>
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Cc: Bitcoin Development <bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Proposal: Encrypt bitcoin messages
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The concern is that if you can monitor traffic in and out of a single
node, you can determine which transactions originate from it vs those
which it relays. That's not great, certainly, but how many nodes
actually require that level of security, and surely they can use Tor or
VPN services if so?

Further, unless the remote nodes are in some way trusted, you're
changing the attack from read-only to requiring the ability to perform 
a man in the middle attack - that doesn't seem much harder to me.

As Gregory states, there's been at least two recent serious if not
catastrophic OpenSSL bugs, and the consequences of Heartbleed if the
Bitcoin network had been vulnerable are the stuff of nightmares.

Very difficult to see the risk/reward payoff being worthwhile.

Ross


On 19/08/2014 18:35, Johnathan Corgan wrote:
> On 08/19/2014 09:38 AM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>
>> We've dodged several emergency scale vulnerabilities by not having TLS.
> I'm still trying to understand the original premise that we want
> encrypted communications between nodes.
>
> I can certainly see the value of having *authenticated* traffic with
> specific nodes, using an HMAC for the protocol messages in place of the
> current checksum.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Bitcoin-development mailing list
> Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development


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    The concern is that if you can monitor traffic in and out of a
    single node, you can determine which transactions originate from it
    vs those which it relays. That's not great, certainly, but how many
    nodes actually require that level of security, and surely they can
    use Tor or VPN services if so?<br>
    <br>
    Further, unless the remote nodes are in some way trusted, you're
    changing the attack from read-only to requiring the ability to
    perform&nbsp; a man in the middle attack - that doesn't seem much harder
    to me.<br>
    <br>
    As Gregory states, there's been at least two recent serious if not
    catastrophic OpenSSL bugs, and the consequences of Heartbleed if the
    Bitcoin network had been vulnerable are the stuff of nightmares.<br>
    <br>
    Very difficult to see the risk/reward payoff being worthwhile.<br>
    <br>
    Ross<br>
    <br>
    <br>
    <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 19/08/2014 18:35, Johnathan Corgan
      wrote:<br>
    </div>
    <blockquote cite="mid:53F38AC9.4000608@corganlabs.com" type="cite">
      <pre wrap="">On 08/19/2014 09:38 AM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:

</pre>
      <blockquote type="cite">
        <pre wrap="">We've dodged several emergency scale vulnerabilities by not having TLS.
</pre>
      </blockquote>
      <pre wrap="">
I'm still trying to understand the original premise that we want
encrypted communications between nodes.

I can certainly see the value of having *authenticated* traffic with
specific nodes, using an HMAC for the protocol messages in place of the
current checksum.

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