CRYPTO-GRAM, December 15, 2009

Bruce Schneier <[email protected]> Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:41:00 -0600

Newsgroups	gmane.comp.security.crypto-gram
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

CRYPTO-GRAM

December 15, 2009

by Bruce Schneier
Chief Security Technology Officer, BT
[email protected]
http://www.schneier.com

A free monthly newsletter providing summaries, analyses, insights, and
commentaries on security: computer and otherwise.

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In this issue:
Terrorists Targeting High-Profile Events
Eric Schmidt on Privacy
News
A Taxonomy of Social Networking Data
The Psychology of Being Scammed
Schneier News
Reacting to Security Vulnerabilities

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Terrorists Targeting High-Profile Events

In an AP story on increased security at major football (the American
variety) events, this sentence struck me: "'High-profile events are
something that terrorist groups would love to interrupt somehow,' said
Anthony Mangione, chief of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's
Miami office."

This is certainly the conventional wisdom, but is there any actual
evidence that it's true? The 9/11 terrorists could have easily chosen a
different date and a major event -- sporting or other -- to target, but
they didn't. The London and Madrid train bombers could have just as
easily chosen more high-profile events to bomb, but they didn't. The
Mumbai terrorists chose an ordinary day and ordinary targets. Aum
Shinrikyo chose an ordinary day and ordinary train lines. Timothy
McVeigh chose the ordinary Oklahoma City Federal Building. Irish
terrorists chose, and Palestinian terrorists continue to choose,
ordinary targets. Some of this can be attributed to the fact that
ordinary targets are easier targets, but not a lot of it.

The only examples that come to mind of terrorists choosing high-profile
events or targets are the idiot wannabe terrorists who would have been
incapable of doing anything unless egged on by a government informant.
Hardly convincing evidence.

Yes, I've seen the movie Black Sunday. But is there any reason to
believe that terrorists want to target these sorts of events other than
us projecting our own fears and prejudices onto the terrorists' motives?

AP story:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/03/orange-bowl-pro-bowl-and-_n_379052.html
or http://tinyurl.com/yhc9kpe

Idiot wannabe terrorists:
http://www.schneier.com/essay-174.html

I wrote about protecting the World Series some years ago.
http://www.schneier.com/essay-065.html

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Eric Schmidt on Privacy

Schmidt said:

I think judgment matters. If you have something that you don't
want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first
place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is
that search engines -- including Google -- do retain this
information for some time and it's important, for example, that we
are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is
possible that all that information could be made available to the
authorities.

This, from 2006, is my response:

Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we're
doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance.

We do nothing wrong when we make love or go to the bathroom. We
are not deliberately hiding anything when we seek out private
places for reflection or conversation. We keep private journals,
sing in the privacy of the shower, and write letters to secret
lovers and then burn them. Privacy is a basic human need.

[...]

For if we are observed in all matters, we are constantly under
threat of correction, judgment, criticism, even plagiarism of our
own uniqueness. We become children, fettered under watchful eyes,
constantly fearful that -- either now or in the uncertain future
-- patterns we leave behind will be brought back to implicate us,
by whatever authority has now become focused upon our once-private
and innocent acts. We lose our individuality, because everything
we do is observable and recordable.

[...]

This is the loss of freedom we face when our privacy is taken from
us. This is life in former East Germany, or life in Saddam
Hussein's Iraq. And it's our future as we allow an ever-intrusive
eye into our personal, private lives.

Too many wrongly characterize the debate as "security versus
privacy." The real choice is liberty versus control. Tyranny,
whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under
constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny.
Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus
privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of
a police state. And that's why we should champion privacy even
when we have nothing to hide.

Schmidt's remarks:
http://gawker.com/5419271/google-ceo-secrets-are-for-filthy-people

My essay on the value of privacy:
http://www.schneier.com/essay-114.html

See also Daniel Solove's "'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other
Misunderstandings of Privacy."
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565

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News

Interesting research on public reactions to terrorist threats. Not that
it's surprising: Fear makes people deferential, docile, and distrustful,
and both politicians and marketers have learned to take advantage of this.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/11/public_reaction.html
Jennifer Merolla and Elizabeth Zechmeister have written a book,
Democracy at Risk: How Terrorist Threats Affect the Public. I haven't
read it yet.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226520552/counterpane/

Funny image: anti-malware detection and the original Trojan Horse.
http://www.sampsonuk.net/B3TA/TrojanHorse.jpg

A study in the British Journal of Criminology makes the point that
drink-spiking date-raping is basically an urban legend. The hypothesis
is that perpetuating the fear of drug-based rape allows parents and
friends to warn young women off excessive drinking without criticizing
their personal choices. The fake bogeyman lets people avoid talking
about the real issues.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/11/a_useful_side-e.html

Door locks that open if you tap a particular rhythm.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/04/secret-knock-door-lock-defends-home-from-rhythmically-impaired/
or http://tinyurl.com/yes7sy5
http://spritesmods.com/?art=knock2open
http://www.taplock.com/

Neat research in "quantum ghost imaging." Despite its name, it has
nothing to do with quantum mechanics; it's a way to use a camera and a
light source to produce images of objects that the camera cannot see.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13825
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2009/11/mil-091102-afps05.htm
or http://tinyurl.com/yzo22l8
http://arxiv1.library.cornell.edu/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0807/0807.2614v1.pdf
or http://tinyurl.com/y9cxzvb

How smart are Islamic terrorists? According to "Organizational Learning
and Islamic Militancy," written by Michael Kenney for the U.S.
Department of Justice in May, not very.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/11/how_smart_are_i.html

Research on stabbing people with stuff you can get through airport security.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17325460?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=257
or http://tinyurl.com/ybgvnec

Denial-of-service attacks against CALEA:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/11/denial-of-servi.html

Funny: career fair fail.
http://failblog.org/2009/11/07/career-fair-fail/
See the caption on the original photo for the real story.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paperghost/776598575/in/set-72157600761788702/
or http://tinyurl.com/ykrxc8o

Al Qaeda secret code broken: maybe this is a real story, and maybe not.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/11/al_qaeda_secret.html

Decertifying "terrorist" pilots:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/11/decertifying_te.html

Norbt (no robot) is a low-security web application to encrypt web pages.
You can create and encrypt a webpage. The key is an answer to a
question; anyone who knows the answer can see the page. I'm not sure
this is very useful.
https://norbt.com/

This paper, on users rationally rejecting security advice, by Cormac
Herley at Microsoft Research, sounds like me:
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/cormac/papers/2009/SoLongAndNoThanks.pdf
or http://tinyurl.com/ygwsxno
Related article on usable security:
http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2009/11/48419-usable-security-how-to-get-it/fulltext
or http://tinyurl.com/yklgwfb

If you allow players in an online world to penalize each other, you open
the door to extortion.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/11/virtual_mafia_i.html

Long, detailed, and very good story of the Mumbai terrorist attacks of
last year.
http://www.vqronline.org/webexclusive/2009/11/19/motlagh-mumbai-attacks/
or http://tinyurl.com/yknrgun
My own short commentary in the aftermath of the attacks.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/12/lessons_from_mu.html

Wikileaks has published pager intercepts from New York on 9/11. It's
disturbing to realize that someone, possibly not even a government, was
routinely intercepting most (all?) of the pager data in lower Manhattan
as far back as 2001. Who was doing it? For that purpose? That, we
don't know.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/11/leaked_911_text.html

This 1996 interview with psychiatrist Robert DuPont was part of a
Frontline program called "Nuclear Reaction." He's talking about the
role fear plays in the perception of nuclear power. It's a lot of the
sorts of things I say, but particularly interesting is his comments on
familiarity and how it reduces fear.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/dupont.html
or http://tinyurl.com/ygxbfvz
So, among other reasons, terrorism is scary because it's so rare. When
it's more common -- England during the Troubles, Israel today -- people
have a more rational reaction to it.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/11/fear_and_overre.html

Long blog post of mine on cyberwarfare policy; lots of links.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/12/cyberwarfare_po.html

This research centers on looking at the radio characteristics of
individual RFID chips and creating a "fingerprint." It makes sense;
fingerprinting individual radios based on their transmission
characteristics is as old as WW II. But while the research centers on
using this as an anti-counterfeiting measure, I think it would much more
likely be used as an identification and surveillance tool. Even if the
communication is fully encrypted, this technology could be used to
uniquely identify the chip.
http://dailyheadlines.uark.edu/16260.htm

With Windows Volume Shadow Copy, it can be impossibly to securely delete
a file.
http://blog.szynalski.com/2009/11/23/volume-shadow-copy-system-restore/
or http://tinyurl.com/yleobxl

Sprint provides U.S. law enforcement with cell phone customer location data:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/12/sprint_provides.html

Using fake documents to get a valid U.S. passport:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/12/using_fake_docu.html
No credential can be more secure than its breeder documents and issuance
procedures.

Article on "Emotional epidemiology" from the New England Journal of
Medicine. It sounds familiar.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/12/emotional_epide.html

The TSA accidentally published its standard operating procedures:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/12/tsa_publishes_s.html
It might have compromised an intelligence program:
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/12/did_the_tsa_compromise_an_intelligence_program.php
or http://tinyurl.com/y96ngm5

No real news on Obama's cybersecurity czar:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/12/obamas_cybersec_1.html
For the record -- as the rumors circulate occasionally -- I don't want
the job.

Wondermark on passwords:
http://wondermark.com/576/

U.S./Russia cyber arms control talks:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/12/usrussia_cyber.html

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A Taxonomy of Social Networking Data

At the Internet Governance Forum in Sharm El Sheikh this week, there was
a conversation on social networking data. Someone made the point that
there are several different types of data, and it would be useful to
separate them. This is my taxonomy of social networking data.

1. Service data. Service data is the data you need to give to a social
networking site in order to use it. It might include your legal name,
your age, and your credit card number.

2. Disclosed data. This is what you post on your own pages: blog
entries, photographs, messages, comments, and so on.

3. Entrusted data. This is what you post on other people's pages. It's
basically the same stuff as disclosed data, but the difference is that
you don't have control over the data -- someone else does.

4. Incidental data. Incidental data is data the other people post about
you. Again, it's basically the same stuff as disclosed data, but the
difference is that 1) you don't have control over it, and 2) you didn't
create it in the first place.

5. Behavioral data. This is data that the site collects about your
habits by recording what you do and who you do it with.

Different social networking sites give users different rights for each
data type. Some are always private, some can be made private, and some
are always public. Some can be edited or deleted -- I know one site
that allows entrusted data to be edited or deleted within a 24-hour
period -- and some cannot. Some can be viewed and some cannot.

And people *should* have different rights with respect to each data
type. It's clear that people should be allowed to change and delete
their disclosed data. It's less clear what rights they have for their
entrusted data. And far less clear for their incidental data. If you
post pictures of a party with me in them, can I demand you remove those
pictures -- or at least blur out my face? And what about behavioral
data? It's often a critical part of a social networking site's business
model. We often don't mind if they use it to target advertisements, but
are probably less sanguine about them selling it to third parties.

As we continue our conversations about what sorts of fundamental rights
people have with respect to their data, this taxonomy will be useful.

Lots of discussion at the blog entry:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/11/a_taxonomy_of_s.html

Another categorization centered on destination instead of trust level:
http://mechpoe.blogspot.com/2009/11/another-categorization-of-social.html
or http://tinyurl.com/y9q5exr

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The Psychology of Being Scammed

This is a very interesting paper: "Understanding scam victims: seven
principles for systems security, by Frank Stajano and Paul Wilson."
Paul Wilson produces and stars in the British television show The Real
Hustle, which does hidden camera demonstrations of con games. (There's
no DVD of the show available, but there are bits of it on YouTube.)
Frank Stajano is at the Computer Laboratory of the University of Cambridge.

The paper describes a dozen different con scenarios -- entertaining in
itself -- and then lists and explains six general psychological
principles that con artists use:

1. The distraction principle. While you are distracted by what retains
your interest, hustlers can do anything to you and you won't notice.

2. The social compliance principle. Society trains people not to
question authority. Hustlers exploit this "suspension of suspiciousness"
to make you do what they want.

3. The herd principle. Even suspicious marks will let their guard down
when everyone next to them appears to share the same risks. Safety in
numbers? Not if they're all conspiring against you.

4. The dishonesty principle. Anything illegal you do will be used
against you by the fraudster, making it harder for you to seek help once
you realize you've been had.

5. The deception principle. Things and people are not what they seem.
Hustlers know how to manipulate you to make you believe that they are.

6. The need and greed principle. Your needs and desires make you
vulnerable. Once hustlers know what you really want, they can easily
manipulate you.

It all makes for very good reading.

The paper:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/techreports/UCAM-CL-TR-754.html

The Real Hustle:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0791615/

Two previous posts on the psychology of conning and being conned.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/06/the_psychology_3.html
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/10/the_psychology_1.html

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Schneier News

Interview with me conducted in Rotterdam in October.
http://risky.biz/RB2-schneier

Interview with me from Gulf News:
http://gulfnews.com/business/technology/cloud-computing-is-here-to-stay-1.532744
or http://tinyurl.com/y8jnskv

Video of the talk on "The Future of Privacy" that I gave to the Open
Rights Group in early December:
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2009/Bruce-Schneier-video-and-book-giveaway
or http://tinyurl.com/ya92ksc

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Reacting to Security Vulnerabilities

Last month, researchers found a security flaw in the SSL protocol, which
is used to protect sensitive web data. The protocol is used for online
commerce, webmail, and social networking sites. Basically, hackers could
hijack an SSL session and execute commands without the knowledge of
either the client or the server. The list of affected products is enormous.

If this sounds serious to you, you're right. It is serious. Given that,
what should you do now? Should you not use SSL until it's fixed, and
only pay for internet purchases over the phone? Should you download some
kind of protection? Should you take some other remedial action? What?

If you read the IT press regularly, you'll see this sort of question
again and again. The answer for this particular vulnerability, as for
pretty much any other vulnerability you read about, is the same: do
nothing. That's right, nothing. Don't panic. Don't change your behavior.
Ignore the problem, and let the vendors figure it out.

There are several reasons for this. One, it's hard to figure out which
vulnerabilities are serious and which are not. Vulnerabilities such as
this happen multiple times a month. They affect different software,
different operating systems, and different web protocols. The press
either mentions them or not, somewhat randomly; just because it's in the
news doesn't mean it's serious.

Two, it's hard to figure out if there's anything you can do. Many
vulnerabilities affect operating systems or Internet protocols. The only
sure fix would be to avoid using your computer. Some vulnerabilities
have surprising consequences. The SSL vulnerability mentioned above
could be used to hack Twitter. Did you expect that? I sure didn't.

Three, the odds of a particular vulnerability affecting you are small.
There are a lot of fish in the Internet, and you're just one of billions.

Four, often you can't do anything. These vulnerabilities affect clients
and servers, individuals and corporations. A lot of your data isn't
under your direct control -- it's on your web-based email servers, in
some corporate database, or in a cloud computing application. If a
vulnerability affects the computers running Facebook, for example, your
data is at risk, whether you log in to Facebook or not.

It's much smarter to have a reasonable set of default security practices
and continue doing them. This includes:

1. Install an antivirus program if you run Windows, and configure it to
update daily. It doesn't matter which one you use; they're all about the
same. For Windows, I like the free version of AVG Internet Security.
Apple Mac and Linux users can ignore this, as virus writers target the
operating system with the largest market share.

2. Configure your OS and network router properly. Microsoft's operating
systems come with a lot of security enabled by default; this is good.
But have someone who knows what they're doing check the configuration of
your router, too.

3. Turn on automatic software updates. This is the mechanism by which
your software patches itself in the background, without you having to do
anything. Make sure it's turned on for your computer, OS, security
software, and any applications that have the option. Yes, you have to do
it for everything, as they often have separate mechanisms.

4. Show common sense regarding the Internet. This might be the hardest
thing, and the most important. Know when an email is real, and when you
shouldn't click on the link. Know when a website is suspicious. Know
when something is amiss.

5. Perform regular backups. This is vital. If you're infected with
something, you may have to reinstall your operating system and
applications. Good backups ensure you don't lose your data -- documents,
photographs, music -- if that becomes necessary.

That's basically it. I could give a longer list of safe computing
practices, but this short one is likely to keep you safe. After that,
trust the vendors. They spent all last month scrambling to fix the SSL
vulnerability, and they'll spend all this month scrambling to fix
whatever new vulnerabilities are discovered. Let that be their problem.

SSL flaw:
http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/news/security-researchers-uncover-ssl-vulnerability-2355
or http://tinyurl.com/yge9not
http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2009-11-06-008-35-NW-DV-NT
or http://tinyurl.com/yb9pxsa
http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=7534
http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid14_gci1373678,00.html
or http://tinyurl.com/yhw7vhb
http://www.tombom.co.uk/blog/?p=85
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/36935/info

SSL flaw used to hack Twitter:
http://www.techworld.com.au/article/326496/ssl_flaw_could_been_used_hack_twitter
or http://tinyurl.com/yevj4uv
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Researcher-Demonstrates-SSL-Vulnerability-on-Twitter-291904/
or http://tinyurl.com/yejjhkz

AVG Anti-virus:
http://lifehacker.com/5401255/best-antivirus-application-avg

My 2004 article on safe personal computing:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2004/12/safe_personal_c.html

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Since 1998, CRYPTO-GRAM has been a free monthly newsletter providing
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CRYPTO-GRAM is written by Bruce Schneier. Schneier is the author of the
best sellers "Schneier on Security," "Beyond Fear," "Secrets and Lies,"
and "Applied Cryptography," and an inventor of the Blowfish, Twofish,
Threefish, Helix, Phelix, and Skein algorithms. He is the Chief
Security Technology Officer of BT BCSG, and is on the Board of Directors
of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). He is a frequent
writer and lecturer on security topics. See <http://www.schneier.com>.

Crypto-Gram is a personal newsletter. Opinions expressed are not
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