My version of this question: what's the new hotness in protecting against any malicious dynamic code changes (including auto-updated code, which of course is a baseline security practice now), on any platform? E.g. is anyone really verifying Signal's reproducible builds...?
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Replying to @fugueish @alexstamos and
I don't really know what reproducible builds prove, that the build server wasn't compromised? If Signal were malicious, they could just add a bugdoor, so you still have to trust them not to be malicious.
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Reproducible builds make most sense together with open source, of course. And it's of value even if nobody is constantly verifying the builds. Simply the point that they could mitigates the vector of a malicious builds server. Source level backdoors are certainly not addressed.
1 reply 0 retweets 8 likes -
Replying to @rene_mobile @fugueish and
You can prove the build server isn't compromised, but you can't prove you're not trying to hide a backdoor, right? So users still have to trust you, and you could get the same benefit from getting a third party to privately repro the build for you...
3 replies 0 retweets 6 likes -
I don't fully agree. It is still easier to hide a backdoor in (obfuscated) binary code than it is in (written-to-be-maintainable) source code. Config should ideally be included. And there are other code quality benefits of reproducible builds besides security (testing, deltas).
2 replies 1 retweet 11 likes -
Replying to @rene_mobile @fugueish and
Is it easier? The benefit of bugdoors isn't ease, it's that they're plausibly deniable, if you get caught, so what? You might even be able to convince people not to talk about it for months, and you can try again in a new patch, there's zero penalty.
2 replies 4 retweets 23 likes -
Replying to @taviso @rene_mobile and
There might be non-security benefits of reproducible builds to *vendors*, but I don't see any benefit to users of being able to reproduce them. This is just because promising there's no backdoors make no sense when bugdoors are just so perfect?
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Replying to @taviso @rene_mobile and
Fwiw I see benefits in reproducible builds to answer the question "is the binary on my machine built from this source"?
3 replies 0 retweets 33 likes -
Replying to @halvarflake @taviso and
Without reproducible builds, source analysis offers zero benefit. With reproducible builds, it offers some benefit. For example, crypto bugdoors that allow mass-scale passive decryption are possible (Dual EC, Fortinet) but are also extremely rare.
2 replies 1 retweet 27 likes -
Replying to @matthew_d_green @halvarflake and
What benefit does it offer? There's no penalty for making a bugdoor, so if you catch the vendor's bugdoor, they have to make a new one?
2 replies 0 retweets 4 likes
To be clear, source analysis is useful to catch non-malicious vendors who make a mistake. If you're trying to determine if a vendor *is* malicious, src analysis provides no benefit, because there is no penalty for hiding a bugdoor....so how do repro builds help?
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Replying to @taviso @halvarflake and
There are a lot of people involved in the build process. And a much smaller number of people involved in the development of specific portions of code. If you can isolate your security concerns to those areas (still aspirational) you can reduce your trusted dev base.
2 replies 0 retweets 11 likes -
Replying to @matthew_d_green @halvarflake and
The discussion is around publishing reproducible builds for the public though, right? This is a way of verifying your build process isn't compromised, but you don't need to publish them and hope the public checks it for that.
3 replies 0 retweets 0 likes - 8 more replies
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