From 06a53748e2050797073d3077dc7db4f84e04941a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: cjwatson <>
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:31:57 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] Don't use sshkeygen.com to generate keys!
---
2008-06-23-ssh-keygen.txt | 70 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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create mode 100644 2008-06-23-ssh-keygen.txt
diff --git a/2008-06-23-ssh-keygen.txt b/2008-06-23-ssh-keygen.txt
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+Don't use sshkeygen.com to generate keys!
+
+To my horror, I recently saw this
+online SSH key generator.
+
+I hope nobody reading this needs to be told why this is a bad idea.
+However, in case you do, here are a few reasons:
+
+
+ -
+ Every SSH implementation I know of - certainly all the major ones - that
+ support public key authentication also provide a key generation utility.
+ Even aside from all the good reasons not to, there is simply no reason why
+ you should need to use a web-based tool in the first place.
+
+ -
+ How can you trust the person running this site? Without implying that I
+ know he or she is untrustworthy (I don't), and with the best will in the
+ world, it's a big Internet with a lot of nasty people on it. Do you really want somebody you don't know in a position to keep a copy of all your
+ private keys?
+
+ -
+ Even if the person is trustworthy, the server running sshkeygen.com is now
+ a giant blinking target. If lots of people use it, there is every
+ incentive in the world for the bad guys to try to take control of it so
+ that they can keep a copy of all your private keys. (Or, as we know from
+ recent bitter experience, they can just give out keys from a limited set
+ and it will probably take a couple of years before anyone notices ...)
+
+ -
+ The front page of sshkeygen.com says that the keys are escrowed. The plain
+ English meaning of this would be that the operator of that site keeps a
+ copy of the private key, to be held in trust in case (presumably) you lose
+ it and need to retrieve it. Normally this sort of thing depends on a legal
+ trust relationship, perhaps linked to a contract. What does it mean here?
+ Is it just a buzzword? If it isn't, then this just makes sshkeygen.com
+ even more of a target.
+
+ -
+ sshkeygen.com delivers keys to you over unencrypted HTTP. Yes, this is on
+ its to-do list. That
+ isn't really an excuse.
+
+ -
+ Even if keys were delivered over HTTPS, that still relies on people
+ diligently checking the authenticity of the certificate. A self-signature
+ (as suggested as an alternative in the to-do list) would be impossible to
+ check with any reliability; and will people who have trouble with
+ non-web-based key generation software really be able or inclined to
+ confirm the signature chain? Browsers typically don't enforce this very
+ strictly, or if they do they provide fairly simple ways to bypass the
+ enforcement, simply because so many sites have broken or poorly-signed SSL
+ certificates, and keeping up with all the CAs is pretty hard work too.
+
+ -
+ Furthermore, delivering private keys over HTTPS makes that SSL certificate
+ a single giant blinking target. Might it be compromised? How would you
+ tell? What servers would need to be compromised in order to get a copy of
+ the private SSL key?
+
+ -
+ Sure, Debian is in an awkward position here given the recent OpenSSL
+ random number generation vulnerability. However, how do you know that
+ sshkeygen.com is running on a system that doesn't suffer from this?
+
+
+
+I think this is probably being done in innocent seriousness
+(although I kind of hope it's a joke in poor taste), and have e-mailed the
+contact address offering to explain why it's a bad idea.
--
2.30.2