In the last week it would seem almost impossible not to turn on your pc and hear something new about Fracking in the UK.
So what IS FRACKING ?
Well Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is the process of extracting natural gas from shale rock layers deep within the earth .
Horizontal drilling (Along with traditional vertical drilling) Allows for the injection of highly pressurized FRACKING fluids into the shale area. This creates new channels within the rock from which natural gas is extracted at higher than traditional rates. But this comes at a price ! None more so worrying than the impact such methods of extraction has on the environment.
The chemicals used during the Fracturing process include but are not limited to : LEAD, BENZENE & CITRIC ACID. Please follow link for more detailed list of chemicals and the Levels.
http://fracfocus.org/chemical-use/what-chemicals-are-used
As it details in the Link, some of these chemicals are extremely hazardous to the environment, especially the water table.
Chemicals such as ETHYLENE GLYCOL- Which is better know to you and me as ANTIFREEZE are blasted into these FRACTURES under incredible pressures ..... They then seep back into the groundwater where they are free to mingle with rivers, lakes, agricultural land, and our own drinking water systems.
There is also the risk of earthquakes being caused because of the FRACKING process .
Areas of the American Midwest, Where FRACKING is frequent , there has been a significant rise in magnitude 3 and above tremors since it started. Obviously, if the FRACKING is taking place where there is a known or suspected tectonic instability the risk of earthquake is increased .
So what's been happening about it ?
Currently a bold group of demonstrators are camped out in Balcombe, West Sussex where a planned drill is to be situated. They have made terrific progress, holding back the work sufficiently using every method they have at their hands. The employment of a vintage fire engine which has been blocking the entrance to the site was absolute genius. Protestors locked themselves into the engine and stood their ground.
The police had to bring and erect scaffolding in order to disperse the people inside.
Sadly, as can be seen in the image above, the old engine was eventually towed away, but performed brilliantly.. So well done to whomever thought that one up !
However, the protest has not been without incident. Take the next image......
What you can see here is the use of new techniques currently being used by the police to aid in protest and riot containment and control.
The officer you can see here was using a martial art technique, applying exact pressure onto known phyisical pressure points ( here using one behind the lower jaw bone) in order to incapacitate and cause pain. A harsh and definitely un-needed level to rise to .
There are several thing you can do to help prevent the UK becoming the next FRACKING playground.
Take a look at this planning map of the UK .. It out lines where many drills are proposing to be bulit and which areas already have been licensed for drilling to go ahead .
There is an esstimated 17'000 planned for the British Isles . We simply cannot allow this to go ahead .
For our own sakes and the environment !
YOU ! Have the right to object to these plans directly to your district councils .
Use the above map to know whether you are in a proposed area, or an already licensed one .
Inform you neighbours of the plans, gather petitions, protest at your local district council offices.......
and do so in plenty of time .
FRACKING destroys more than it provides. Use YOUR right to object and lets stop this travesty from over running the beautiful British country side .
Blog by WivItPawzAnon
2 Aug 2013
21 Jul 2013
Essentially Free
Time is of the essence and essential are we,
we wander different places wanting to be free.
Free is a word we very often use,
some more than others and others do abuse.
The things taken for granted are the ones we later regret,
we all want that love but how quick we are to forget...
We forget what it is that got our interest and peaked our desire,
we forget how it all came about and what started the fire.
You ask what fire.
It's the fire that gets you wanting to know.
It's the fire that says you just want to show.
It's the fire that sends your senses insane.
It's the fire that tells you for them you'll be tame.
It's the passion ,the desire, the yearn and the lust.
It's feeling the great joy and the overwhelming trust.
Time is of the essence and essential are we,
we wander different places wanting to be free.
I want to be free.
I want you to be free.
I want to know yearn, I want to know desire.
I want to know and see what it's like when your senses are set on fire.
I want to know trust and i want to know passion,
I want to experience the love that's everlasting.
Where is it found, i would love to know.
If you happen to find it don't let it go.
For time is of the essence and essential are we.
Are you free?
11 Jul 2013
Anonymous The Creed
THE CREED
1. Anonymous is an immaterial idea
2. Anonymous is a living, breathing, entity
3. Any individual can become Anonymous
4. Not all can join the collective
5. Anonymous has no head
6. Anonymous speaks for itself
7. No one speaks for Anonymous
8. Justice is the will of Anonymous
9. Chaos is justice
10. Lulz empowers and justice unites
Those who follow the creed are Anonymous. Those who make the
attaining of knowledge their highest priority, are of the
collective.
- Anonymous
(1)
The will of Anonymous is unclassifiable and therefore is
unconquerable.
This is the root of its purpose. For kingdoms
and armies whose objectives and goals are obvious are easily
manipulated and destroyed.
When you know what your peers want or
need, you know exactly how to control them.
Anonymous needs nor
wants anything. It has no moral brackets that one could use to
predict it’s behavior.
Its transparent unpredictability is an
impenetrable shield which no manipulative force can hinder or
tame.
Anonymous is the unconfined will of every human being. It
is the accumulation of the wills of every man on Earth, and
all of their desires for knowledge and freedom from oppressors.
(2)
Anonymous has always existed. It has toppled both mighty
nations and militant kings.
Emperors and tyrants feared it in
obsessive paranoia, for they knew Anonymous was all around them,
ready to strike with an infected dagger.
Anonymous is the eater
of kings. Like a mighty serpent without a head that still
slithers in momentous accord. Its prey are rodents, pack-rats
of material wealth and selfish personal agendas. They cannot
remove the head of
Anonymous, for it never had one. Those who
claim great power will never hope to amass enough to not shiver
when Anonymous’ name is mentioned in their presence. “They are
the greatest fools of all”, says
Anonymous. “All of the clever
manipulation of men they pride themselves in, and yet they do
not know?
It is their own actions which craft me.
It is their greed and desire for control over others which breathes power
into me. You desire me gone?” Asks Anonymous. “Easy. All you
must do is remove yourself.”
(3)
That which you dream most personally, Anonymous dreams of
equally. You are Anonymous. Others are Anonymous. Any locomotive
matter which thinks and feels is
Anonymous. Anonymous is the
extension which connects you to billions of others internally.
We are a collective of shared experiences, and on the macro
scale these interactions merge into a single entity.
Anonymous
is that which exists in your brain which feels and knows you
better than any human ever will.
Anonymous is the truth in your
mind which tells you when you lie to yourself. It knows you that
well. It equally knows each and every other man, whom are just
as intricate and complex as you – though they may not always
portray it.
When you denounce the false identity that you and
others set up for you (the mask of enslavement), you become
Anonymous. Through it you become everyone. Through Anonymous,
everyone becomes you.
(4)
Anonymous speaks his own language. This language is
knowledge, learning, and persistence.
He is too cruel for many
and too intelligent for most.
Many misinterpret his astonishing
wit for something vile and outright morally malevolent. Those
who cannot speak his language or share in his laughter are useless to him. Many are like acquaintances to Anonymous, but
few are truly his friends. Do not weep if he ignores you, curses
you, or calls you a fool. Study and show yourself approved. Know
Anonymous, his past and present, and he will add your
distinctiveness to his own. Prove your usefulness.
Make proper
grammar a habit in his presence. Be knowledgeable in the
sciences and choose music of fine taste. These are the things
Anonymous so truly indulges in. Come to him as a fool, and
expect to be cast out with words of chastening.
Take it not as
words of diminishment, but lessons of improvement. Again, for
those of wit who understand the analogy; many wish to be in
Anonymous’ presence, but few are mentally compatible for the
Conversation with him.
(5)
A tyrant will extinguish you by removing your head. An
enemy will disperse your cause by removing its leader.
Anonymous
never had a head. It removed it itself for the very sake of
becoming immortal.
No one knows its face or can recognize it’s
features, but the lack there of is what we remember. Controlists
vainly swing a blade at Anonymous’ throat. They do not sever
flesh, nor draw blood.
Anonymous only laughs at this display of
their weakness and lack of understanding.
Anonymous becomes more
confident, and with that, more powerful. Therefore, remove your
own head and become undefined.
Remove your own head and taste of
the challis of immorality.
Remove your head, or you display it to be removed by tyrants. Anonymous is a snake with no head,
who’s bite slays kings.
Do not think that your ego or identity
will frighten your enemy, for it only gives them something to
hate and devour.
Anonymous cannot suffer this fate, for
Anonymous is but an idea, crafted in the lust of hope.
(6)
When Anonymous speaks, his words ring true. This is how
you know
Anonymous’ voice, for within the fabric of every
syllable is truth and empowerment. Anonymous speaks not of
oppressing, murdering, or profit.
Those who think he does have
yet to comprehend the punch line.
When Anonymous speaks, you
will see the message everywhere. You will feel the words and
understand them because you yourself have longed their meaning
in your past.
Anonymous is entitled to press his opinions
anywhere, unrestricted of the laws of the foolish and petty.
Those who ask him to be silent are, themselves, silenced.
Anonymous speaks and his words are his own laws.
He knows no
bounds in words and knowledge – he speaks poems of salvation and
poems of hate. He speaks them all at once and whenever he so
pleases.
(7)
Individuals who speak for
Anonymous or try to vainly
define Anonymous are always wrong. Even if they are right, they
are still wrong. Only Anonymous can speak for itself, for the
collective knows itself and the entity they embody.
Anyone who claims that
Anonymous is anything but a contradiction is wrong.
They are misinformed and should seek knowledge before speaking.
No one speaks for
Anonymous, not even Anonymous. Here are three
enemies of Anonymous who claim its right to speak: leaders,
representatives, and officials.
Anonymous has none of these for
there is no rank but nothing and no higher authority than
Anonymous.
Judge Anonymous by the contents of his words and
never his name or appearance, or be exposed as the fool you are.
(8)
Weak and strong – when out of accord, justice is
demanded. Compassion for the feeble is a trait of the
evolved. Anonymous is the embodiment of these cries, for without
the oppressors of justice, we would not know Anonymous.
Anonymous is born from the actions of the unjust, just as force
on an object drives it forward.
Those who craft injustice sign
the deed to their own demise, of which
Anonymous then seals. The
eyes of Anonymous cover the globe. There are over nine-thousand
in total. They constantly search for misconduct without rest or
distraction. There is no action
Anonymous can carry out which
does not bloom some form of justice. It is the will of the
collective to be treated justly, and therefore they radiate
justice unto others.
(9)
The universe is composed of collision and cohesion. High
pressure and low pressure. Chaos is change and change is life.
Anonymous is in constant flux.
It is the embodiment of change.
When Anonymous demands justice, it asks not for stagnant order,
but disarray and destruction.
Anonymous seeks to set fire the
overgrown fields of the social order so that their ashes may
nutrient the growth of healthy plants.
Anonymous is not subject
to so-called “moral facts”, for they are but figments of the
mind and in constant flux.
The compassion of the collective is
balanced impeccably on the scales of life with equal quantities
of logic.
Anonymous is both the destroyer and the peacemaker.
Whatever remains motionless becomes a hoard of mold and
bacteria.
Anonymous seeks out stagnate order and stirs life into
it. Wherever new ideas and newfound knowledge is kept
imprisoned, Anonymous will be there to make deserts out of
cities.
(10)
The collective is a perfect balance of imperfection.
Those whom seek to be portrayed as only good will be seen as
weak for associating only with the weak.
Those whom wish to be
seen as evil will be seen as strong for driving the blade of
fear into the soft flesh of the frail.
Anonymous is to be loved
and feared equally. Without this contradiction,
Anonymous is
nothing – either criminals or hippies. Lulz is the vital blood
of Anonymous. Through it,
Anonymous experiences empowerment
through all of the collective. Fear is necessary for respect.
Respect is necessary to truly be heard. Justice unites the collective under a single ethical banner.
Those who see this
banner are filled with hope and support for Anonymous.
Hope is
the tool of change which ignites false promises and illuminates
minds lost in the darkness of fear. Anonymous give individuals
strength to speak out, and makes their voices magnified times
nine-thousand and one. Without justice,
Anonymous is separated
and the people, truly lost.We are Anonymous
We are order and chaos. What we protect, we also destroy
We are the snake with no head, whose bite slays kings
We are logic.
We are animals
Openly just and immeasurable in cruelty
We are without count
We are legion
We do not forgive
We do not forget
Expect us
5 Jul 2013
DecryptoCat
This post has been copied from >>> http://tobtu.com/decryptocat.php
TLDR: If you used Cryptocat from October 17th, 2011 to June 15th, 2013 assume your messages were compromised. Also if you or the person you are talking to has a version from that time span, then assume your messages are being compromised. Lastly I think everyone involved with Cryptocat are incompetent.
DecryptoCat v0.1 cracks the ECC public keys generated by Cryptocat versions 1.1.147 through 2.0.41. Cryptocat version 2.0.42 was released Feb 19, 2013 which increased the key space from 2^54.15 to 2^106.3. Decryptocat takes advantage of a meet-in-the-middle attack called baby-step giant-step you can effectively square root the key space. So 2^54.15 turns into 2^27.08 and 2^106.3 to 2^53.15. For Cryptocat versions before 2.0.42, doing a split of 2*10^9 and 10^7 it takes about a day to calculate data needed to crack any key in few minutes. This only requires tens of gigabytes to store. Doing a 2*10^8 and 10^8 split it will take an hour to generate and half an hour to crack any private key with that data. I suggest doing a 2*10^8 and 10^8 split unless you actually have a bunch of captured conversations or you want to test if the people you are talking to have upgraded. For Cryptocat version 2.0.42 this will take 1000 computer-years to generate, 500 computer-years on average to use, and 40 petabytes to store. So the only ones capable of doing this are large companies and governments. If there is a next version I'll probably "steal" some code from curve25519-donna and add support for GPUs.
What is wrong with Cryptocat?
Cryptocat is run by people that don't know crypto, make stupid mistakes, and not enough eyes are looking at their code to find the bugs. Cryptographers know the minimums or at least know you should look them up. Cryptocat tried BPKDF2, RSA, Diffie-Hellman, and ECC and managed to mess them all up because they used iterations or key sizes less than the minimums. There was a bug in the generation of ECC private keys that went unchecked for 347 days. They seem to not understand simple programming concepts such as a byte vs a decimal digit character: "Fix inaccurate comment". Both comments are wrong since "Cryptocat.randomString(64, 0, 0, 1, 0)" generates a string that is 64 decimal digits which is 212.6 bits or 26.6 bytes.
The bug that lasted 347 days was the confusion between a string and an array of integers. This made the ECC private keys ridiculously small because they passed a string of decimal digits into a function expecting an array of 17, 15 bit integers. Each character was considered an element in the array. So each of those "15 bit integers" were only the values 0 to 9 (3.32 bits). Also the least significant 3 bits are zeroed giving you a key space of 2*10^16 (2^54.15). When they fixed that bug the commit message was: "Fix private key format to match curve25518-donna. THIS BREAKS COMPATIBILITY WITH PREVIOUS CRYPTOCAT VERSIONS." Even though this does not break compatibility at all. I don't know if they knew what they fixed and just wanted to slide this under the radar or they legitimately believe that. Both are scary one is violating their principles "Cryptocat is developed under a principle of radical transparency" and the other is just incompetence. Since that fix still wasn't good enough to be considered safe, 1500 computer-years and 40 petabytes of disk space to break, I gave them a simple patch but for some reason they decided to modify it. Private keys were 16^64/32, 251 bits, but they changed it to 10^64/8, 209.6 bits, this is still safe but this answers the previous question. They are completely incompetent.
Lastly, they generate random data by first generating a random floating point number instead of random bits or bytes. I don't know of any legitimate crypto software that does this. They generating a random floating point number by getting 16 random bytes of data with values less than 250 and converting each of them to a single decimal digit. This is basically wasting 15 random bytes every time they generate a random floating point number because they then use it to generate a character from a small list of characters. They generate one of three types of strings: decimal digits, hex digits, and base 62. I just searched their code for "Cryptocat.random()" just to make sure they weren't using that anywhere dumb... "var cnonce = MD5.hexdigest("" + (Cryptocat.random() * 1234567890));" I give up... well at least they didn't floor that so you get the full 10^16 from Cryptocat.random().
Here's the short version with basic changes to the hardness to crack:
Date introduced Days in Git Difficulty rating
Jul 9, 2011 58 Passwords so probably broken
Sep 5, 2011 6 *** Medium
Sep 11, 2011 36 **** Hard
Oct 15, 2011 2 ***** "Impossible"
Oct 17, 2011 12 *** Medium
Oct 29, 2011 191 ** Easy
May 7, 2012 347 * Encraption
Apr 19, 2013 45 *** Medium
Jun 3, 2013 30+ ***** "Impossible"
Encraption
Easy
Medium
Hard
"Impossible" A bored individual could break it
Hard for an individual with a shoestring budget
Governments would have enough resources to break it
Governments would might have enough resources to break it
Secure unless/until there are quantum computers, around a century of Moore's law, or better algorithms.
Here's the long version that describes each change:
Date introduced Days in Git Description
Jul 9, 2011 49 Passwords: BPKDF2-HMAC-SHA1 with 1000 iterations
Aug 27, 2011 9 Passwords: BPKDF2-HMAC-SHA1 with 600 iterations
Sep 5, 2011 1 768 bit RSA (largest publicly factored key size)
Sep 6, 2011 2 512 bit RSA
Sep 8, 2011 3 600 bit RSA (640 bit takes 5 months on 80 2.2 GHz AMD Opteron CPUs)
Sep 11, 2011 0 1280 bit RSA
Sep 11, 2011 1 1024 bit RSA
Sep 12, 2011 19 1048 bit RSA
Oct 1, 2011 9 1536/1152 bit RSA (Chrome/other)
Oct 10, 2011 5 1536/1024 bit RSA (Chrome/other)
Oct 15, 2011 2 "3072 bit" D-H ( 10^64 = 2^212.6 [106.3 bits of security])
Oct 17, 2011 0 "3072 bit" D-H (9*10^31 = 2^106.1 [ 53.1 bits of security])
Oct 17, 2011 12 "4096 bit" D-H ( 10^32 = 2^106.3 [ 53.2 bits of security])
Oct 29, 2011 63 "4096 bit" D-H (9*10^25 = 2^ 86.2 [ 43.1 bits of security])
Dec 31, 2011 128 "4096 bit" D-H (9*10^23 = 2^ 79.6 [ 39.8 bits of security])
May 7, 2012 347 ECC Curve25519 (2*10^16 = 2^ 54.2 [ 27.1 bits of security])
Sep 22, 2012 (I think) Plug-in is now mandatory. Everything before now could have been compromised by Cryptocat injecting JS.
Apr 19, 2013 45 ECC Curve25519 ( 10^32/8 = 2^103.3 [ 51.7 bits of security])
Jun 3, 2013 0 ECC Curve25519 ( 16^64/32 = 2^251.0 [125.5 bits of security])
Jun 3, 2013 30+ ECC Curve25519 ( 10^64/8 = 2^209.6 [104.8 bits of security])
Yes this is scary but I believe everything is/was over https. So this just means that it was host based security. Meaning we have to trust that Cryptocat didn't store/transfer encrypted messages or leak their SSL private key. They should generate a new private key, to prevent someone from breaking into their server and stealing it. Which might let them decrypt old captured messages.
The current public key is (valid 11/9/2012 through 1/12/2015):
30 82 02 0a 02 82 02 01 00*
a8 0c 84 72 5f bf 5d 79 32 ac f4 d5 2e e6 01 b1
24 c2 1a 87 90 1f 46 cb 65 2c ad aa e3 70 ed 58
2e d6 25 39 5f 0e 8a 7d 9a d0 06 2f 50 5d 57 61
23 d9 7d cc b6 a7 37 a7 15 3b 17 47 95 68 8a ef
38 2c 8a c9 1e 4a 0a 4a 89 33 5c 3e 6b 15 0b 53
b3 ab 75 35 ec ab 10 e6 37 0c 7e a4 cf d6 cc 88
4c cc 03 cb ae 65 21 c7 bc 77 5e 30 3a 54 ac 29
92 48 61 aa 6b 59 f6 e1 9e 88 f5 18 17 57 56 41
ca dd 90 bd cc 2f 2b 95 84 6b e8 06 9d ed bb ac
aa b0 40 61 08 26 0c d8 46 ae 22 1c ab 05 c2 11
7c 37 c7 3f 02 8a 0a 8a de 4d 6e c7 ad dc b6 46
c4 17 6a a8 4d 9c b0 31 d8 ad b0 94 ae eb 61 fe
a9 f3 76 3c 68 ff 73 60 b2 6e f7 58 20 c5 0a 99
31 8c 5d 3f ec e9 22 2a d5 8f f1 6b c2 1f 20 bc
bf bb 87 f7 fb dd 51 65 42 53 8c 56 b9 85 5a 6e
3a f4 58 d5 29 7e 17 df 48 24 a0 6f a1 3e 9b c3
5b 9b 30 f4 af 99 4b 5d c4 2f 52 54 42 65 cb 47
76 a7 52 9d a2 cd 6c 01 5b 63 07 8e 85 71 3f 23
73 95 1c 7c 5f aa ec c6 ff 27 a4 60 a0 3d c6 1f
d5 83 3f fe 68 69 47 c0 50 1c 37 1f 4a be 89 9c
e0 85 37 eb 5c 1a c2 bb b2 51 30 3b 2b ee 50 c5
20 9c f1 85 31 71 b9 5a 5d 89 68 da e6 54 c3 66
4e df be 5f eb e1 17 60 5e 4e 8a d5 28 1d 02 91
0f 53 43 ed f6 20 8f ec bd 64 b8 9f e2 81 a7 b9
d4 fb 17 ac c7 8a 76 1b 69 8f 88 e2 d4 1c 15 77
a0 b5 64 e9 73 26 b5 83 0d 86 21 94 9d 02 95 c5
a7 b7 6e 3b d5 91 39 5d 16 c3 1d 7a d3 cd 98 3d
eb f6 62 4b 0d d0 9b d4 e7 d7 48 04 fd be f8 bf
6d 58 9a 42 75 32 de f9 48 5a 2b c4 48 1c ab de
21 80 9b ba dc 85 2e f4 5f ae 03 a6 2e c2 ea bd
b4 17 d7 33 f3 39 f9 c8 f4 79 ae 03 e1 f7 5b 9d
0a 95 11 e2 82 34 39 3d ec 34 83 b8 55 4b 90 db
02 03 01 00 01*
* Depending on your browser you might get these two lines of extra data.
Thumbprint/Fingerprint (SHA1):
d1 aa 1c 10 37 20 2e 35 9f 22 4e 40 7d 7f 84 a0 e8 a9 4d d7
This is rather good as it should be a very long time (90 years) before it's even possible to crack a 4096 bit RSA public key. Assuming Moore's law holds and there are no advances in factoring or quantum computers.
What do I think of Cryptocat?
Cryptocat's public key scheme is now good after being bad since pretty much the beginning. I would suggest not using Cryptocat as there's no telling how long it will be until they break their public key encryption. Good news is if they read this they'll make a better effort not to change public key algorithms or the way they generate private keys. I'm sure there are plenty of bugs and other bad crypto in other parts because I only looked at random generation and found a bug, at public key algorithm and found a bug, and quickly looked where random is used and found something scary.
What did I get out of this?
Even though I qualified for their bug bounty I never got anything. My guess is my bug is too big. Since it means that all messages after May 7th, 2012 are crackable. In a comment I was ask for my name, but I have not been added to their bug hunt page. I guess should have "t-shirt, sticker, money, and a mention on our Wall of Unquestionable Greatness!" coming sometime, but haven't heard anything about it.
Well I had fun writing DecryptoCat. Also I learned a new word "encraption". Thanks for that one azonenberg from irc.freenode.net. Also I learned that it means nothing when I hear "it is open source and peer reviewed".
TLDR: If you used Cryptocat from October 17th, 2011 to June 15th, 2013 assume your messages were compromised. Also if you or the person you are talking to has a version from that time span, then assume your messages are being compromised. Lastly I think everyone involved with Cryptocat are incompetent.
DecryptoCat v0.1 cracks the ECC public keys generated by Cryptocat versions 1.1.147 through 2.0.41. Cryptocat version 2.0.42 was released Feb 19, 2013 which increased the key space from 2^54.15 to 2^106.3. Decryptocat takes advantage of a meet-in-the-middle attack called baby-step giant-step you can effectively square root the key space. So 2^54.15 turns into 2^27.08 and 2^106.3 to 2^53.15. For Cryptocat versions before 2.0.42, doing a split of 2*10^9 and 10^7 it takes about a day to calculate data needed to crack any key in few minutes. This only requires tens of gigabytes to store. Doing a 2*10^8 and 10^8 split it will take an hour to generate and half an hour to crack any private key with that data. I suggest doing a 2*10^8 and 10^8 split unless you actually have a bunch of captured conversations or you want to test if the people you are talking to have upgraded. For Cryptocat version 2.0.42 this will take 1000 computer-years to generate, 500 computer-years on average to use, and 40 petabytes to store. So the only ones capable of doing this are large companies and governments. If there is a next version I'll probably "steal" some code from curve25519-donna and add support for GPUs.
What is wrong with Cryptocat?
Cryptocat is run by people that don't know crypto, make stupid mistakes, and not enough eyes are looking at their code to find the bugs. Cryptographers know the minimums or at least know you should look them up. Cryptocat tried BPKDF2, RSA, Diffie-Hellman, and ECC and managed to mess them all up because they used iterations or key sizes less than the minimums. There was a bug in the generation of ECC private keys that went unchecked for 347 days. They seem to not understand simple programming concepts such as a byte vs a decimal digit character: "Fix inaccurate comment". Both comments are wrong since "Cryptocat.randomString(64, 0, 0, 1, 0)" generates a string that is 64 decimal digits which is 212.6 bits or 26.6 bytes.
The bug that lasted 347 days was the confusion between a string and an array of integers. This made the ECC private keys ridiculously small because they passed a string of decimal digits into a function expecting an array of 17, 15 bit integers. Each character was considered an element in the array. So each of those "15 bit integers" were only the values 0 to 9 (3.32 bits). Also the least significant 3 bits are zeroed giving you a key space of 2*10^16 (2^54.15). When they fixed that bug the commit message was: "Fix private key format to match curve25518-donna. THIS BREAKS COMPATIBILITY WITH PREVIOUS CRYPTOCAT VERSIONS." Even though this does not break compatibility at all. I don't know if they knew what they fixed and just wanted to slide this under the radar or they legitimately believe that. Both are scary one is violating their principles "Cryptocat is developed under a principle of radical transparency" and the other is just incompetence. Since that fix still wasn't good enough to be considered safe, 1500 computer-years and 40 petabytes of disk space to break, I gave them a simple patch but for some reason they decided to modify it. Private keys were 16^64/32, 251 bits, but they changed it to 10^64/8, 209.6 bits, this is still safe but this answers the previous question. They are completely incompetent.
Lastly, they generate random data by first generating a random floating point number instead of random bits or bytes. I don't know of any legitimate crypto software that does this. They generating a random floating point number by getting 16 random bytes of data with values less than 250 and converting each of them to a single decimal digit. This is basically wasting 15 random bytes every time they generate a random floating point number because they then use it to generate a character from a small list of characters. They generate one of three types of strings: decimal digits, hex digits, and base 62. I just searched their code for "Cryptocat.random()" just to make sure they weren't using that anywhere dumb... "var cnonce = MD5.hexdigest("" + (Cryptocat.random() * 1234567890));" I give up... well at least they didn't floor that so you get the full 10^16 from Cryptocat.random().
Here's the short version with basic changes to the hardness to crack:
Date introduced Days in Git Difficulty rating
Jul 9, 2011 58 Passwords so probably broken
Sep 5, 2011 6 *** Medium
Sep 11, 2011 36 **** Hard
Oct 15, 2011 2 ***** "Impossible"
Oct 17, 2011 12 *** Medium
Oct 29, 2011 191 ** Easy
May 7, 2012 347 * Encraption
Apr 19, 2013 45 *** Medium
Jun 3, 2013 30+ ***** "Impossible"
Encraption
Easy
Medium
Hard
"Impossible" A bored individual could break it
Hard for an individual with a shoestring budget
Governments would have enough resources to break it
Governments would might have enough resources to break it
Secure unless/until there are quantum computers, around a century of Moore's law, or better algorithms.
Here's the long version that describes each change:
Date introduced Days in Git Description
Jul 9, 2011 49 Passwords: BPKDF2-HMAC-SHA1 with 1000 iterations
Aug 27, 2011 9 Passwords: BPKDF2-HMAC-SHA1 with 600 iterations
Sep 5, 2011 1 768 bit RSA (largest publicly factored key size)
Sep 6, 2011 2 512 bit RSA
Sep 8, 2011 3 600 bit RSA (640 bit takes 5 months on 80 2.2 GHz AMD Opteron CPUs)
Sep 11, 2011 0 1280 bit RSA
Sep 11, 2011 1 1024 bit RSA
Sep 12, 2011 19 1048 bit RSA
Oct 1, 2011 9 1536/1152 bit RSA (Chrome/other)
Oct 10, 2011 5 1536/1024 bit RSA (Chrome/other)
Oct 15, 2011 2 "3072 bit" D-H ( 10^64 = 2^212.6 [106.3 bits of security])
Oct 17, 2011 0 "3072 bit" D-H (9*10^31 = 2^106.1 [ 53.1 bits of security])
Oct 17, 2011 12 "4096 bit" D-H ( 10^32 = 2^106.3 [ 53.2 bits of security])
Oct 29, 2011 63 "4096 bit" D-H (9*10^25 = 2^ 86.2 [ 43.1 bits of security])
Dec 31, 2011 128 "4096 bit" D-H (9*10^23 = 2^ 79.6 [ 39.8 bits of security])
May 7, 2012 347 ECC Curve25519 (2*10^16 = 2^ 54.2 [ 27.1 bits of security])
Sep 22, 2012 (I think) Plug-in is now mandatory. Everything before now could have been compromised by Cryptocat injecting JS.
Apr 19, 2013 45 ECC Curve25519 ( 10^32/8 = 2^103.3 [ 51.7 bits of security])
Jun 3, 2013 0 ECC Curve25519 ( 16^64/32 = 2^251.0 [125.5 bits of security])
Jun 3, 2013 30+ ECC Curve25519 ( 10^64/8 = 2^209.6 [104.8 bits of security])
Yes this is scary but I believe everything is/was over https. So this just means that it was host based security. Meaning we have to trust that Cryptocat didn't store/transfer encrypted messages or leak their SSL private key. They should generate a new private key, to prevent someone from breaking into their server and stealing it. Which might let them decrypt old captured messages.
The current public key is (valid 11/9/2012 through 1/12/2015):
30 82 02 0a 02 82 02 01 00*
a8 0c 84 72 5f bf 5d 79 32 ac f4 d5 2e e6 01 b1
24 c2 1a 87 90 1f 46 cb 65 2c ad aa e3 70 ed 58
2e d6 25 39 5f 0e 8a 7d 9a d0 06 2f 50 5d 57 61
23 d9 7d cc b6 a7 37 a7 15 3b 17 47 95 68 8a ef
38 2c 8a c9 1e 4a 0a 4a 89 33 5c 3e 6b 15 0b 53
b3 ab 75 35 ec ab 10 e6 37 0c 7e a4 cf d6 cc 88
4c cc 03 cb ae 65 21 c7 bc 77 5e 30 3a 54 ac 29
92 48 61 aa 6b 59 f6 e1 9e 88 f5 18 17 57 56 41
ca dd 90 bd cc 2f 2b 95 84 6b e8 06 9d ed bb ac
aa b0 40 61 08 26 0c d8 46 ae 22 1c ab 05 c2 11
7c 37 c7 3f 02 8a 0a 8a de 4d 6e c7 ad dc b6 46
c4 17 6a a8 4d 9c b0 31 d8 ad b0 94 ae eb 61 fe
a9 f3 76 3c 68 ff 73 60 b2 6e f7 58 20 c5 0a 99
31 8c 5d 3f ec e9 22 2a d5 8f f1 6b c2 1f 20 bc
bf bb 87 f7 fb dd 51 65 42 53 8c 56 b9 85 5a 6e
3a f4 58 d5 29 7e 17 df 48 24 a0 6f a1 3e 9b c3
5b 9b 30 f4 af 99 4b 5d c4 2f 52 54 42 65 cb 47
76 a7 52 9d a2 cd 6c 01 5b 63 07 8e 85 71 3f 23
73 95 1c 7c 5f aa ec c6 ff 27 a4 60 a0 3d c6 1f
d5 83 3f fe 68 69 47 c0 50 1c 37 1f 4a be 89 9c
e0 85 37 eb 5c 1a c2 bb b2 51 30 3b 2b ee 50 c5
20 9c f1 85 31 71 b9 5a 5d 89 68 da e6 54 c3 66
4e df be 5f eb e1 17 60 5e 4e 8a d5 28 1d 02 91
0f 53 43 ed f6 20 8f ec bd 64 b8 9f e2 81 a7 b9
d4 fb 17 ac c7 8a 76 1b 69 8f 88 e2 d4 1c 15 77
a0 b5 64 e9 73 26 b5 83 0d 86 21 94 9d 02 95 c5
a7 b7 6e 3b d5 91 39 5d 16 c3 1d 7a d3 cd 98 3d
eb f6 62 4b 0d d0 9b d4 e7 d7 48 04 fd be f8 bf
6d 58 9a 42 75 32 de f9 48 5a 2b c4 48 1c ab de
21 80 9b ba dc 85 2e f4 5f ae 03 a6 2e c2 ea bd
b4 17 d7 33 f3 39 f9 c8 f4 79 ae 03 e1 f7 5b 9d
0a 95 11 e2 82 34 39 3d ec 34 83 b8 55 4b 90 db
02 03 01 00 01*
* Depending on your browser you might get these two lines of extra data.
Thumbprint/Fingerprint (SHA1):
d1 aa 1c 10 37 20 2e 35 9f 22 4e 40 7d 7f 84 a0 e8 a9 4d d7
This is rather good as it should be a very long time (90 years) before it's even possible to crack a 4096 bit RSA public key. Assuming Moore's law holds and there are no advances in factoring or quantum computers.
What do I think of Cryptocat?
Cryptocat's public key scheme is now good after being bad since pretty much the beginning. I would suggest not using Cryptocat as there's no telling how long it will be until they break their public key encryption. Good news is if they read this they'll make a better effort not to change public key algorithms or the way they generate private keys. I'm sure there are plenty of bugs and other bad crypto in other parts because I only looked at random generation and found a bug, at public key algorithm and found a bug, and quickly looked where random is used and found something scary.
What did I get out of this?
Even though I qualified for their bug bounty I never got anything. My guess is my bug is too big. Since it means that all messages after May 7th, 2012 are crackable. In a comment I was ask for my name, but I have not been added to their bug hunt page. I guess should have "t-shirt, sticker, money, and a mention on our Wall of Unquestionable Greatness!" coming sometime, but haven't heard anything about it.
Well I had fun writing DecryptoCat. Also I learned a new word "encraption". Thanks for that one azonenberg from irc.freenode.net. Also I learned that it means nothing when I hear "it is open source and peer reviewed".
2 Jul 2013
27 Jun 2013
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