Gcc: nnfolder+archive:news-cc

Appended is a disturbing message from the kerberos newsgroup.

I have confirmed that the plaintext command does indeed go across the wire.

A tcpdump of "rsh -x date" by user "wolfgang".

    22:48:39.967232 pasillo.wsrcc.com.5120 > capsicum.wsrcc.com.kshell: P 473:494(21) ack 85 win 17520 <nop,nop,timestamp 1238462 1124938>
            -x date\000wolfgang\000\000\000\000\000 (DF)
============^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I'm not sure I really understand this, but on the face of it, it sure
looks like kerberos's "rsh -x" connections are subject to
man-in-the-middle modification attacks.  Somebody please tell me 
that this data is protected by some other cryptographic trick.

-wolfgang

    From: bam@silas-1.cc.monash.edu.au (Mr Brian May)
    Subject: security of rsh encryption?
    Newsgroups: comp.protocols.kerberos
    Date: 10 Sep 1999 03:41:46 GMT
    Organization: Monash Uni
    Reply-To: bmay@csse.monash.edu.au
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    Sorry if you receive multiple copies of this message, my ex-newsreader
    was playing up.

    (I hope no one thinks I am being paranoid here, but I have a question 
    concerning the security of the Kerberos rsh protocol with encryption, 
    and I didn't get any response from the heimdal mailing list. I would 
    like to be able to tell others, yes, rsh is secure without hesitation). 

    > From krshd.c in MIT kerberos: 

	if (status) { 
	    if (auth_sys == KRB5_RECVAUTH_V5) { 
		/* 
		 * clean up before exiting 
		 */ 
		getstr(netf, locuser, sizeof(locuser), "locuser"); 
		getstr(netf, cmdbuf, sizeof(cmdbuf), "command"); 
		getstr(netf, remuser, sizeof(locuser), "remuser"); 
	    } 
	    return status; 
	} 

	getstr(netf, locuser, sizeof(locuser), "locuser"); 
	getstr(netf, cmdbuf, sizeof(cmdbuf), "command"); 

    [skip a few lines] 

	getstr(netf, remuser, sizeof(locuser), "remuser"); 


    getstr reads the string in without doing any decryption. ie the 
    values of locuser, command, and remuser are not encrypted. Further 
    on in the code, if I am correct, the read value of cmdbuf is used to 
    enable encryption: 

	if (!strncmp(cmdbuf, "-x ", 3)) 
	    do_encrypt = 1; 

    I have verified that these values are transmitted in plain text by 
    stracing the heimdal implementation of Kerberos. I believe that 
    it uses the same protocol as MIT Kerberos. 

    Now, isn't it highly dangerous to pass the command line in plain text? 
    What if someone where alter the command line after it has been 
    transmitted and turns off encryption?  Even worse, what if they 
    changed the command line to say "rm -rf ."???  Please tell me where I 
    am wrong. 

    (BTW, I have similar concerns for ftp, where a decrypted message may 
    be used when encryption is meant to be enabled, but haven't yet 
    investigated this in as much detail.) 

    Thanks. 

    PS - please send me a CC of all mail, as my news server has been acting 
    very funny lately, and times even losing mail. 

    -- 
    Brian May <bmay@csse.monash.edu.au>