Filename: xxx-what-uses-sha1.txt Title: Where does Tor use SHA-1 today? Authors: Nick Mathewson, Marian Created: 30-Dec-2008 Status: Meta Introduction: Tor uses SHA-1 as a message digest. SHA-1 is showing its age: theoretical attacks for finding collisions against it get better every year or two, and it will likely be broken in practice before too long. According to smart crypto people, the SHA-2 functions (SHA-256, etc) share too much of SHA-1's structure to be very good. RIPEMD-160 is also based on flawed past hashes. Some people think other hash functions (e.g. Whirlpool and Tiger) are not as bad; most of these have not seen enough analysis to be used yet. Here is a 2006 paper about hash algorithms. http://www.sane.nl/sane2006/program/final-papers/R10.pdf (Todo: Ask smart crypto people.) By 2012, the NIST SHA-3 competition will be done, and with luck we'll have something good to switch too. But it's probably a bad idea to wait until 2012 to figure out _how_ to migrate to a new hash function, for two reasons: 1) It's not inconceivable we'll want to migrate in a hurry some time before then. 2) It's likely that migrating to a new hash function will require protocol changes, and it's easiest to make protocol changes backward compatible if we lay the groundwork in advance. It would suck to have to break compatibility with a big hard-to-test "flag day" protocol change. This document attempts to list everything Tor uses SHA-1 for today. This is the first step in getting all the design work done to switch to something else. This document SHOULD NOT be a clearinghouse of what to do about our use of SHA-1. That's better left for other individual proposals. Why now? The recent publication of "MD5 considered harmful today: Creating a rogue CA certificate" by Alexander Sotirov, Marc Stevens, Jacob Appelbaum, Arjen Lenstra, David Molnar, Dag Arne Osvik, and Benne de Weger has reminded me that: * You can't rely on theoretical attacks to stay theoretical. * It's quite unpleasant when theoretical attacks become practical and public on days you were planning to leave for vacation. * Broken hash functions (which SHA-1 is not quite yet AFAIU) should be dropped like hot potatoes. Failure to do so can make one look silly. Triage How severe are these problems? Let's divide them into these categories: PREIMAGE -- A SHA-1 usage that only depends on preimage resistance COLLISION -- A SHA-1 usage that depends on collision resistance, but the only party who could mount a collision-based attack is already in a trusted role (like a distribution signer or a directory authority). COLLISION -- A SHA-1 usage that depends on collision resistance and doesn't need the attacker to have any special keys. There is no need to put much effort into fixing PREIMAGE usages in the near-term: even _MD5_ is still preimage resistant. To fix COLLISION usages is not too important either, since anyone who has the key to sign the code can mount far worse attacks. It would be good to fix COLLISION usages, since we try to resist. The COLLISION usages are the most important to fix. Additionally, we need to consider the impact of a successful attack in each of these cases. SHA-1 collisions are still expensive even if recent results are verified, and anybody with the resources to compute one also has the resources to mount a decent Sybil attack. Let be pessimistic, and not assume that producing collisions of a given format is actually any harder than producing collisions at all. What Tor uses hashes for today: 1. Infrastructure. A. Our X.509 certificates are signed with SHA-1. COLLSION B. TLS uses SHA-1 (and MD5) internally to generate keys. PREIMAGE? C. Some of the TLS ciphersuites we allow use SHA-1. PREIMAGE? D. When we sign our code with GPG, it might be using SHA-1. COLLISION E. Our GPG keys might be authenticated with SHA-1. COLLISION F. OpenSSL's random number generator uses SHA-1, I believe. PREIMAGE 2. The Tor protocol A. Everything we sign, we sign using SHA-1-based OAEP-MGF1. PREIMAGE? B. Our CREATE cell format uses SHA-1 for: OAEP padding. PREIMAGE? C. Our EXTEND cells use SHA-1 to hash the identity key of the target server. COLLISION D. Our CREATED cells use SHA-1 to hash the derived key data. ?? E. The data we use in CREATE_FAST cells to generate a key is the length of a SHA-1. NONE F. The data we send back in a CREATED/CREATED_FAST cell is the length of a SHA-1. NONE G. We use SHA-1 to derive our circuit keys from the negotiated g^xy value. NONE H. We use SHA-1 to derive the digest field of each RELAY cell, but that's used more as a checksum than as a strong digest. NONE 3. Directory services [All are COLLISION or COLLISION ] A. All signatures are generated on the SHA-1 of their corresponding documents, using PKCS1 padding. * In dir-spec.txt, section 1.3, it states, "SIGNATURE" Object contains a signature (using the signing key) of the PKCS1-padded digest of the entire document, taken from the beginning of the Initial item, through the newline after the Signature Item's keyword and its arguments." So our attacker, Malcom, could generate a collision for the hash that is signed. Thus, a second pre-image attack is possible. Vulnerable to regular collision attack only if key is stolen. If the key is stolen, Malcom could distribute two different copies of the document which have the same hash. Maybe useful for a partitioning attack? B. Router descriptors identify their corresponding extra-info documents by their SHA-1 digest. * A third party might use a second pre-image attack to generate a false extra-info document that has the same hash. The router itself might use a regular collision attack to generate multiple extra-info documents with the same hash, which might be useful for a partitioning attack. C. Fingerprints in router descriptors are taken using SHA-1. * The fingerprint must match the public key. Not sure what would happen if two routers had different public keys but the same fingerprint. There could perhaps be unpredictable behaviour. D. In router descriptors, routers in the same "Family" may be listed by server nicknames or hexdigests. * Does not seem critical. E. Fingerprints in authority certs are taken using SHA-1. F. Fingerprints in dir-source lines of votes and consensuses are taken using SHA-1. G. Networkstatuses refer to routers identity keys and descriptors by their SHA-1 digests. H. Directory-signature lines identify which key is doing the signing by the SHA-1 digests of the authority's signing key and its identity key. I. The following items are downloaded by the SHA-1 of their contents: XXXX list them J. The following items are downloaded by the SHA-1 of an identity key: XXXX list them too. 4. The rendezvous protocol A. Hidden servers use SHA-1 to establish introduction points on relays, and relays use SHA-1 to check incoming introduction point establishment requests. B. Hidden servers use SHA-1 in multiple places when generating hidden service descriptors. C. Hidden servers performing basic-type client authorization for their services use SHA-1 when encrypting introduction points contained in hidden service descriptors. D. Hidden service directories use SHA-1 to check whether a given hidden service descriptor may be published under a given descriptor identifier or not. E. Hidden servers use SHA-1 to derive .onion addresses of their services. F. Clients use SHA-1 to generate the current hidden service descriptor identifiers for a given .onion address. G. Hidden servers use SHA-1 to remember digests of the first parts of Diffie-Hellman handshakes contained in introduction requests in order to detect replays. H. Hidden servers use SHA-1 during the Diffie-Hellman key exchange with a connecting client. 5. The bridge protocol XXXX write me 6. The Tor user interface A. We log information about servers based on SHA-1 hashes of their identity keys. COLLISION B. The controller identifies servers based on SHA-1 hashes of their identity keys. COLLISION C. Nearly all of our configuration options that list servers allow SHA-1 hashes of their identity keys. COLLISION E. The deprecated .exit notation uses SHA-1 hashes of identity keys COLLISION