Private keys used to sign EU Digital Covid Certificate might have been leaked | Hacker News Reader

Private keys used to sign EU Digital Covid Certificate might have been leaked

nitter.net

207 pointsqsort203 comments

https://g.nh.ee/images/pix/1200x0/lYFSVUXJ5XY/1d2e261794d4d3...

This QR code proves Adolf Hitler has received 2 doses of Pfizer vaccine. At the moment you can still use the Estonian app to verify this (https://kontroll.digilugu.ee). Probably this specific cert will be revoked soon in all the apps.

But the cat is out of the bag. Everyone's grandparents will need to do the certificate retrieval dance again, which is another confusion that we did not need at this critical junction.

Someone out there has a serious problem with ethics. Or someone really screwed up to the point where it was obvious that a responsible disclosure was already a moot point. In my experience, CERT-EU is normally very competent and would have handled it professionally.

It (already?) records as invalid in the Italian app.

I think they might be checking against the online database, can you try to see if you replicate it offline? (if that's even possible)

It works with the latest VerificaC19(Android)

It's also shown as valid by the German CovPassCheck app.

Maybe there's a real person named Adolf Hitler? Not from Germany for sure.

Maybe from Austria?

> Not from Germany for sure.

Is it illegal to name a child Adolf Hitler in Germany? Serious question, not sarcasm.

it is illegal

It strikes me as one of those things that society is perfectly happy self-regulating

One would assume, but unfortunately as another comment in this thread illustrated, there is no bottom when probing the depth of the depravity inspired by ignorant hatred.

Sometimes it doesn't really feel like parents think too hard about their child's well-being when naming them. They actually publish the list of names that were rejected because of Finnish naming laws and while the list doesn't say if it was a parent seeking a name for a child, or an adult for themselves, I imagine there are many that are seeking them for a child. For example, "Decepticon", "Marihuana", "Sukka" (literally means "sock").

And as a famous example from across the pond, Elon Musk comes to mind.

There's no actual written law on this, but the relevant authority (Standesamt) has to take the child's welfare into account when accepting names, and may reject them as a matter of common law.

(I suppose it's possible this would be under the purview of the Verbotsgesetz as well, but it wouldn't get that far due to the name being rejected.)

> Is it illegal to name a child Adolf Hitler in Germany?

Not necessarily (from https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorname_(Deutschland)#Rechtlic... , roughly translated into English):

The law on giving names in Germany is not passed through legislation but is instead the result of customary law and legal precedent/judgements. Exceptions are for example in changing of the given name(s) involving adoption or in the application of §1 TSG ("transsexual law").

After the birth of a child its first name is decided by their parents (or the singular legal guardian) although there are certain guidelines for the naming.

The first name...

- ... has to be recognizable as a first name

- ... can be of neutral gender (had to be obviously male or female until 2008)

- ... must not be damaging to the child, for example inviting ridicule or making a connection to "Evil", e.g. "Judas" or "Kain" ("Cain" in English). The first name Adolf despite its tainting through the dictator could potentially be legal depending on the parents' motives

- ... must not be damaging to the religious feelings of other people in society, for example "Christus", in the past also "Jesus" which has since been declared legal by a court

- ... must not be a well known name for a place/town/city or a trademark

- ... must not be a family name, with some exceptions

- ... must not contain a title like "Lord" or "Princess"

- ... must be given within a month of the birth.

A person can have multiple, but has to have at least one first name. The local can also intervene in the giving of too many first names if that would otherwise come to harm the child (one ruling made it so a mother could not give her child twelve but only a maximum of five first names). When given multiple first names the one most often used to address the person is called the "Rufname" (approximate English equivalent "nickname"). The arrangement of the first names is not a ranking. Following a German supreme court decision (1959) a person is free to choose from their official first names by which they'd like to be addressed, the "nickname" is thus not set permanently.

A child's first names have to differ from their siblings', if there are multiple first names, one can be the same as a sibling's. Three first names must not be connected by dashes (e.g. "Jan-Marius-Severin").

- snip, long paragraph on the history of the requirement for an obvious gender of the first name(s), important part to follow - Following a supreme court decision in 2008, there is no such requirement in the law, the earlier "requirement" came from an official directive given to the registrar's offices ("Standesämter"). Thus the name-giving by the parents continues to only be restricted by the "no harm to the child" or if "there is no possible way for the child to identify their sex/gender [1] from the name".

In Germany, exceptions allow for the later change of one's own first name(s). For example immigrants have the option to "Germanize" their names or, if that's impossible, choose new first names. Furthermore there's the option to change one's first name(s) if the person has always been called by a different name or if they can't deal with their "exotic" first name.

In addition trans people have the option to change their first name to fall in line with their gender identity (for which on German identity documents the options are "male", "female" or "diverse").

[1]: don't know which is meant here, "Geschlecht" is (colloquially) used for both words in German

A friend from Montenegro, living in Germany, gave a name to his son ending in "a". At first it was rejected because in German all names ending in "a" are female. Had to bring an official paper from his embassy to prove that chosen name is in deed a male one. I think it was before 2008, as mentioned above.

"Maria" is a name which is mostly used for girls, but in Germany it can be used as a middle name for boys too. So names ending with an "a" only for girls is not a hard rule.

So yes, there are some hurdles to name your child whatever you want and I think this is good for the child. But usually these hurdles are not unconquerable.

Nikola Tesla was a man and had both names ending in -a.

Born at January 1st 1900, right)

A family in New Jersey USA had their children taken away from them after naming one of their kids that. They attracted attention by ordering a birthday cake with the then 3yo’s name on it.

I have a friend whose older brother is named Adolf, born in Berlin in the early 1940s and still lives there. I’ve always wanted to ask why he didn’t change his name but what an awkward question.

I am surprised Dolf Lundgren didn’t choose a completely different stage name (though he’s Swedish).

The NJ situation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heath_Hitler

>I am surprised Dolf Lundgren didn’t choose a completely different stage name (though he’s Swedish).

Isn't his name Dolph? And I would've never actually thought about "Adolf" when seeing his name, so I don't really see that he would've needed to do that.

Personally I think it is unethical not to leak it. Technology is the best way to fight surveillance-oppression.

So you are saying we shouldn’t trust whether others have been vaccinated or not?

Or should we fallback to paper cert?

We shouldn’t ask others about their private medical information.

That's not how it works.

Your medical record is private, but if a job has a requirement they can ask for proof of vaccine. It is up to you to provide it, and it is up to them to how to interpret it if you don't provide and how to handle it.

For example even before the pandemic it was a job requirement of you were in a medical field.

That's fine but I didn't have to show my vaccination record to my current employer. I literally sit at home and stare at a computer screen all day. That's different than a nurse at a hospital.

My sister works at Pfizer in clinical trials, her last day is next week. She literally had to submit negative test results every week since around May. She works remotely, doesn't live in the same state as Pfizer headquarters and sits in front of a computer all day. Tell me how that makes sense?

I think you should get vaccinated and then trust that vaccine works (if you’re worried about the virus).

That talking point completely ignores the dynamics of infectious disease.

So do the COVID vaccine mandates, frankly. Relatively short lived (~months) protection against infection, which itself comes at the cost of encouraging vaccine escape variants to become the dominant strain.

Furthermore while protection against infection/transmission wanes incredibly quickly compared to natural immunity, the protection against severe disease/hospitalization does much less so. Therefore it is quite silly for a vaccinated person with a functioning immune system to be afraid of catching COVID. (This is usually the point in the discussion where people start saying "what about this one super rare immunocompromised person who the vaccine doesn't work well for"...)

So the whole idea of population-level vaccination to stop the spread is absurd on its face. And the real world data only further underscores that (mass vaccination did not stop the 2021 waves, and if anything it seems like vaccination helped briefly prevent some people from acquiring natural immunity due to briefly protection them against infection, which just made the vaccinated population even better substrate when Delta came roaring).

If someone's concerned about COVID, they need to get vaccinated and stop trying to control everyone around them. It's really quite simple. The collectivist benefit of vaccination is poor at best, and has a lot of theoretical concerns associated with it such as https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou.... Whereas the individual benefit wrt mortality&morbidity is a much stronger argument.

Mass vaccination did not stop the waves in 2021 because vaccination numbers were too low.

Your whole argument is that vaccination wasn't effective on a population level... because the population was not vaccinated enough. With delta we need to reach 90% (https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-herd-immunity-...), but we got nowhere near that thanks to people wanting to treat a collective problem like an individual one.

Reduction of infection/transmission is only one endpoint to consider. We also need to consider the overall effect on the quality of healthcare we can expect to receive in a situation where low vaccination rates causes hospitals to be overrun. This is where the line between personal health decisions on whether to get vaccinated or not and what is fair to society as a whole gets blurry.

People tend to argue "but what about $arbitrary_unhealthy_habit, we don't regulate that!" when someone mentions this, but $arbitrary_unhealthy_habit has been accounted for in terms of resources required to treat people (assuming a working healthcare system), whereas a once-in-a-century-level pandemic hasn't, so it's not a valid comparison.

That's a fine argument, but I've never seen a proper quantitative assessement of the risk of hospital over-run with respect to vaccination rates (or in general, frankly). The vast majority of COVID infections are mild or completely asymptomatic, so something like 90% of the hospitalization burden is being caused by 10% of infections. Mandating that some random 20-something year old get vaccinated does not move the needle (no pun intended) whatsoever.

The at-risk populations can be vaccinated. Let's get them (voluntarily) vaccinated and be done with it. Enough of these mandates which serve more to enrich giant pharmaceutical companies than they do to improve public health.

BTW, while mortality isn't the only outcome of concern, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Pfizer's 6 month RCT - the highest quality data we have of this kind, period - showed no improvement in all-cause mortality in the 20,000+ people they vaccinated compared to the control: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.28.21261159v...

> During the blinded, controlled period, 15 BNT162b2 and 14 placebo recipients died; during the open-label period, 3 BNT162b2 and 2 original placebo recipients who received BNT162b2 after unblinding died. None of these deaths were considered related to BNT162b2 by investigators.

So the highest quality evidence indicates that vaccinating a similar population will make no difference in net deaths. (One possible counterargument would be to argue that transmission was unusually low during the study period, but AFAICT that's simply not the case)

Back to your comment:

> People tend to argue "but what about $arbitrary_unhealthy_habit, we don't regulate that!" when someone mentions this, but $arbitrary_unhealthy_habit has been accounted for in terms of resources required to treat people (assuming a working healthcare system), whereas a once-in-a-century-level pandemic hasn't, so it's not a valid comparison.

I won't make that argument, but I did want to mention that - while unrelated to mandates per se - we basically scaled down our healthcare capacity across 2020, at least in the US, due to all the furloughs and the like from the missed medical appointments, as well as (in many places) suspension of "elective" surgeries. And more relevant to the vaccines, a small but real number of healthcare workers have been or are in the process of being fired for non-compliance with the mandate, regardless of their prior infection history etc

Parent was not so much asking about mortality as about health care management. Do you imply all the data that shows unvaccinated are much more likely to require hospitalization, is flawed or fake?

A lot of it is statistical fuckery. The set of people hospitalized who are unvaccinated is not the same as the set of unvaccinated people who end up getting hospitalized.

But some of it is certainly true. Vaccination makes a very significant difference in hospitalization among the very at-risk subset of the population. But in the healthier demographics, vaccination status is irrelevant to "net hospitalization" because in those demographics COVID itself is irrelevant to hospitalization when compared to other causes of hospitalization.

Since I didn't mention it explicitly, I mentioned all-cause mortality because that's going to be very correlated to all-cause hospitalization as well (and the fact that mortality itself is something we should care about).

There are so many half truths in your arguments it would take far too long to refute them all. It’s hard to believe you’re not acting in bad faith, either that or completely indulging your confirmation biases.

Wait what? I mean, seriously either 1) you believe the vaccine works: in that case YOU are safe if you're vaccinated, regardless of others. 2) you believe the vaccine doesn't work: it doesn't matter.

So ... what? You don't believe either of those?

The reality is neither of those. The vaccine works, but not perfectly. As such, the protection is the product of the protections of everyone you come in contact with.

Yes there can be a short-lived infection with covid even when you're vaccinated. It's going to be very short lived and not dangerous, and I believe I once read a study that claims humans face some 50 short-lived infections daily. Mostly not covid, not even a virus at all: mostly bacterial ones.

Lots of people die effectively from pneumonia ("natural causes", but pneumonia is the drop that overflows the bucket). And if you turn out to be one of them, you know where the bacteria that's going to kill you currently is? It's on your skin. Right now. Best to take no chances and burn your skin off, because you're sure as hell not going to get it off with any less serious measures.

If you think a simple shot that in the worst case has you feeling kind of off for a few days is comparable to ... taking off your skin, then frankly you are a lunatic.

It's also not as much about my risk if I were to get infected, but me transmitting it to somebody else.

Like say my grandma. She's vaccinated, but she's also 80. In that age group, vaccines might not be enough. Look at Colin Powell. Vaccinated twice, still dead from Covid.

I'm tired of inconsiderate assholes making up elaborate excuses to continue being a risk to everyone cause they don't want the inconvenience of a needle

The biggest thing you can do is get vaccinated and lose like 50 lbs. My grandpa is 85, he got it and it was nothing. He's also not carrying any extra weight and still works and repairs watches. He got Covid at work. I think there's mental aspect and physical aspect. Obviously an anecdote but I think there's few things to take a way.

Almost no vaccines work that way. They’re not magic shields.

In reality protection is slightly variable depending on a host of factors including age & immune response, but on a _population_ level they work to bring the disease under control.

The polio vaccine ended that disease’s existence in most of the world, but it’s not perfect. If you’re vaccinated with the regular schedule and go to a polio-endemic area you may still get it. That’s why people who may be exposed to it in places where it’s endemic or in labs need additional booster shots according to CDC guidelines.

It's irrelevant whether other people have been vaccinated or not, for a vaccine that works. The claims to the contrary are all extremely weak that look strongly like working backwards from the desired conclusion (collective action) to something that sounds vaguely scientific (the passes).

The system therefore has no legitimacy and opposing it is ethically correct.

Just get the vaccine and go about life. If you're still worried, you're welcome to stay at home and play video games.

You should not trust even paper certs. At least in Russia, too many of them are bought by anti-vaxxers. I.e., some doctors responsible for vaccination, given some extra money, do everything they need to do, except the actual injection.

P.S. My re-vaccination attempt failed on October 22nd. 270 people in the queue before me, some are sneezing, no social distancing at all, so I decided not to risk. I still have a valid certificate from March 18th.

Are you against speed limit enforcement too? Or is this a matter of degree and not pure principle?

Mostly yes. E.g. in Germany there’s often no speed limits. I also support laws like “you’re responsible for not speeding” so if you crash and hurt someone, you could be guilty, but not if you’re speeding on a completely straight & empty motorway.

I'm not sure I would say often. The no speed limit stretches are much more limited than people outside of the country seem to think, and often are temporarily limited when needed, times of higher traffic, road work, near cities or on/off ramps, weather conditions, etc. It is not as much of a free for all as you make it out to be.

We already have laws that make people responsible if they are speeding and crash and hurt someone, and people still do it. The problem with your logic of "there should be no rule unless someone does something to hurt someone" is that people are not always rational, and once someone is hurt or killed it is too late. It is better to try and discourage the behaviour that hurts someone before it happens, rather than after.

We disagree, and that’s fine. Maybe I also have higher risk tolerance than most other people.

Comparing speed limit to health status is misleading to say the least.

The two are not comparable. You don't need a car to live. But in some countries you're cut off from essential services in the name of politicized science.

Completely agree with you but that opinion is based on understanding that covid was created in a lab, and the vaccines are a power and money grab or worse.

>Everyone's grandparents will need to do the certificate retrieval dance again

it's very questionable whether this is true. revocation can be done many different ways, reissuing can be made more convenient too

The Austrian app is verifying it as well still:

https://greencheck.gv.at/

There is a second link that's also popular right now: https://github.com/ehn-dcc-development/hcert-spec/issues/103

Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29011537 (1 comment)

The alternate seems to be actually more popular (22 pts vs 6 pts), but I suppose that the HN algorithm seems to rate it down due to pointing to GitHub?

Seems the keys have already been revoked. Doesn't mean it can't leak again, but doesn't seem to be a problem with a leaked key at the moment.

Actual source seems to be here: https://rfmirror.com/Thread-TRADING-make-EU-green-pass?page=...

What about people who got legit certificates but now the key it used has been revoked?

At least in UK the app will generate a new certificate on the fly.

I am not using an app. I am not installing any third party apps on my phone, government or not, period.

The certificate I am using is printed on a piece of paper I carry with me.

well, print it again then.

I know this, but a lot of people may not know because they don't care to read HN. Then they try to board a plane and get rejected.

to be fair, yes, you are right, it is going to be a pain for a lot of people.

Similar here. I use the app since it doesn't do anything invasive, but I also have a paper backup (I don't always carry it) because it's a bit too important to be dependent on a phone only. I bet I'd first find out about my certificate being revoked at some check point where my phone isn't working and I can't easily get a new one...

In general? Or just COVID apps?

> not installing any third party apps on my phone

Just out of curiosity, is that for privacy reasons or ? Seems rather strange for a smartphone ?

Can't you keep it in a jpeg file and show that?

You can do both. In addition to these two methods I also have a print of that QR code in my car.

So it also automatically resigns the forged certs, or how does it tell the difference?

It tells the difference by looking up the test results in a database. At least that's how it works in Portugal. You can also use the app to look up other health related information.

As far as I understand, it connect to some NHS server and after authentication it fetches a certificate that has been signed by the server.

Don't know for covid passport (since it is not enforced in the UK), but for travel certificates I believe the QR code has a validity of 3 months.

The covid passport is enforced in Scotland.

It's definitely a solution when you have an app (assuming you have a 3rd party source of identification of users), but since it's a French key, a sizeable portion of people, mostly elderly, are not using the "official" app but a paper printed QR code that was given to them at the time of the second injection (or a picture of said code).

Since the French app is pretty terrible (it used to be the barely functional contact tracing app that didn't want to use Google/Apple's API, so there's a pretty strong popular stigma against it), even a sizeable portion of smartphone users use an alternative too (I personally have my QR code in Apple's Wallet, but there are other 3rd party solutions).

Depending on when that key was in use, this may be an epic bureaucratic mess to solve here in France if they have to reissue many.

Edit : I'll quickly add that while there's a database of vaccinated people handled by CNAM (the single payer social security administration), it doesn't seem extremely accurate : my best friend and one of his collegues were vaccinated, issued a QR code, but they weren't added to said database and had a terrible time getting the situation fixed. In the end, a pharmacist reissued a "vaccination" for them to "get them in the system". So that database is probably at best incomplete (for the process of reissuing).

Does carrying just a QR code work fine for you? My experience from Germany is that nobody scans the code, they just scroll to details to see there's two vaccinations recorded. This far my QR code has only actually been scanned at the airport.

So I haven't had an issue yet and having the QR code is definitely sufficient in France (and always attempted to check when appropriate in my personal experience, no ID check though as that was deemed illegal).

There is however a prevalent issue with QR code scanning that I noticed twice personally (and friends reported the same experiences at other places), which is that most restaurants use a super cheap phone/tablet with a terrible camera that usually is unable to focus on a smartphone screen correctly.

Once, the person was honest about it and explained they kept having issues with it, and I tried to help him focus correctly his device (QR code size + luminosity seems to be the issue from what I saw).

The second one tried a couple of time, didn't manage to focus and told me "all ok" despite it's device not having scanned me (I could see the screen).

If I had to travel though, I'd definitely take the paper certificate on top of it, as, at least here in France, that's considered for better of for worse the source of truth.

I've had my QR code scanned going to bars and restaurants in Germany. Works fine.

In Italy they scan it regularly at restaurants, at least where I'm from. And I have a UE certificate, not an italian one, and never had any complain.

Same for me, everybody touches my phone to scroll down the screen, nobody scans it. Way to handle a pandemic...

My experience in Italy is evenly split between these two cases:

1. Scan the code with the app every time.

2. Ask if I have the pass, maybe look at it once, hopefully remember me the next times.

There is also a small percentage of cases of no questions asked, ever.

By the way, I'm using a printed copy of the pass. It never runs out of battery, I don't mind if it falls on the floor when I'm using it, it works even if I'm using the phone for something else. Cons: it needs to be replaced if its key gets revoked.

In France it was scanned a lot when I was there in August.

In Ireland it’s hit and miss. About 60% of the time had to produce it, but very few places want to see ID as well, which is needed to prevent people just using someone else’s pass.

I’m all for it so I’d love to see better enforcement.

There is no pretty way to fix that, anything signed by a revoked key automatically becomes invalid.

> Since the French app is pretty terrible (it used to be the barely functional contact tracing app that didn't want to use Google/Apple's API, so there's a pretty strong popular stigma against it)

Yeah the UK very wisely put the passports and the contract tracing in separate apps (helps that the NHS already had an app pre-pandemic). Not sure if it was intentional, but it certainly sidesteps this issue!

I was on holiday in France and imported my Irish code to the French app. Found it real easy to use.

It doesn't matter because the key was used to sign before it got revoked. You should know this on a site like hackernews.

Please don't belittle people for not knowing things like this, it's entirely rude and unnecessary. See https://xkcd.com/1053/

It is also wrong for one other funny reason. I have been a security officer for a credit card acquiring business and have been designing cryptographic infrastructure for credit card payment systems. I have also implemented a complete credit card terminal application with magstripe, chip&pin and contactless. I know (or at least known at some point in time) pretty much everything practical there is to know about certificates and I have even been able to parse TLV of X.509 by looking at the hex dump of it.

So that was pretty poor shot at me.

What prevents you from backdating a forged certificate then?

I'm not aware of how the COVID certs work, but the way that's solved in TLS certificates (used for https) is that when signing, you have to use an approved timestamping authority. A timestamping authority will basically say "Yes, this action was taken at exactly this time". See [0].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_timestamping

Timestamping does exist but it isn't used in the Web PKI (what you're calling "TLS certificates")

Both backdating and forward dating have been done in the Web PKI for various reasons, both legitimate (e.g. historically if you couldn't randomise serial numbers enough it was acceptable to randomise the notBefore time parameters slightly, this is no longer allowed) and illegitimate (we have pretty good circumstantial evidence that StartCom issued SHA-1 certificates long after such issuance was forbidden, probably for $$$ from companies that realised they should have bought one before the cut-off) but there is no inclination to insist upon timestamping to try to prevent that.

The most likely place you'll see timestamping in arguably publicly trusted certificates is code signing.

Something that is currently being used (sort of widely) is X509 OCSP. As the Cert gets signed, the CA also embeds an OCSP URL which clients can later use on the fly to determine if a cert is revoked.

In case of a leaked private key where the actual PKI wasn't breached, they still have authority over the CA itself and can therefore determine which certs are valid and which are fake.

This retains validity of the known issued certificates, but invalidates fraudulently issued certificates. The downside is that its an optional check and that every client needs an online connection in order to validate the cert.

Anyway, the COVID certificates don't seem to be actual X.509 certificates and are rather just a signed message, so this isn't something that could be utilized right now.

> In case of a leaked private key where the actual PKI wasn't breached, they still have authority over the CA itself and can therefore determine which certs are valid and which are fake.

In a very important sense the private key is the CA.

The OCSP responses are not encrypted (you'll notice that URL you mentioned is HTTP, you can't use HTTPS for this) but they are signed documents. They're signed by the issuer using its Private Key.

So, somebody who has the Private Key can mint bogus OCSP responses signed with that key too.

The recovery from losing a signing key is to revoke the entire tree under that key. This will usually involve pushing out software changes e.g. a Firefox or Chrome gets fresh data from the vendor saying "This CA is no longer trustworthy, disregard it".

This disaster scenario is why the root keys aren't (must not be) online. If you break into the computer systems of a famous but competent CA and seize total control of everything, you could perhaps (it should be difficult because they're using HSMs but if you've really got control of everything it may be possible) steal the private keys for the online intermediates. But their root is physically locked in somebody's safe, so, you can't steal that by this route for the same reason you can't steal gold bars from Fort Knox by hacking the Pentagon's web site.

Not only is that comment arrogant, spiteful but it is also not necessarily correct.

It matters to the people whose true certificate is now invalid, which is probably what the GP meant.

Certificate still works on the Portuguese cert checking app as of 13:35 GMT

Maybe, but I installed the Scottish validation app a couple of minutes ago and it's still coming up green.

You using the EU system in Scotland? Good for you guys :)

Very unlikely that the key has been revoked. Instead probably that single certificate has been blocked in the Italian app.

I checked the Hitler code with apps from Latvia, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Iceland and France.

The apps for Latvia, Luxembourg and Switzerland say OK, the one for France says "OK but fraudulent", the one for Iceland says no. From the article it looks like the Italian app also says no.

Not revoked everywhere it seems. Also, the French app seems to check against a blacklist, so it is possible that only the Hitler code is considered invalid and not the signing key.

I just checked with the Dutch app. It says the QR code is valid.

> "OK but fraudulent"

What does that even mean?

It has the green check mark, like a valid certificate because the vaccination scheme is right. But under it is a warning that the pass is fraudulent (blacklisted).

It is a weird UI choice but making the distinction between an invalid pass (ex: partial vaccination) and a fraudulent one is useful.

The Austrian app is also satisfied.

Nobody on this forum provided any kind of verification that they own the private key. It is way more likely that a rogue doctor sells certificates to unvaccinated people (which we know happens) than that the private key leaked, so let's not jump into conclusions here.

Does it have to be the keys that are leaked? There should be hundreds of healthcare workers who have access to the covid certificate system.

I find it more likely there's an option to enter custom data for non-citizens and someone was just messing around.

Maybe some unprotected API gateway?

I think that's absolutely the most likely. And it's not hundreds, it's probably more like tens of thousands (or more). For example, when I got mine issued in Germany, I just went to a pharmacy, gave them my ID and (paper) vaccination record, and the pharmacist came back in a couple of minutes with my QR code.

The interesting thing to watch, over the coming days, is this: will the public policy response do the technically correct thing, and make sure that you need all your original documentation (signed records from the doctor's office, etc.) to get your new covpass issued? Or will they do something incorrect (but easy), like let people come in with their now-invalid pass plus a government ID to get a new one issued?

I am not sure how the key management works, maybe they are just issuing private keys to each pharmacy, and if any pharmacy just went rogue, it should be extremely easy to know which one the certificate is coming from.

Also, it is easy to get a valid vaccination code anyways, for example, I took a friend of mine, who was vaccinated out of EU, to a pharmacy and nicely asked if he can have a certificate for travel. They just glanced at the his vaccination dates and gave us qr codes, no questions asked. The yellow booklet is easy to forge as well.

> maybe they are just issuing private keys to each pharmacy

That seems too complicated for every single pharmacy in Europe. I bet they just punch in some data to a web app and it does the actual cryptographic signing.

> I took a friend of mine, who was vaccinated out of EU, to a pharmacy and nicely asked if he can have a certificate for travel. They just glanced at the his vaccination dates and gave us qr codes, no questions asked.

This seems no different than Joe pharmacist punching in Hitler. It's still a big problem, but it's not nearly as bad as leaking the actual private key.

> That seems too complicated for every single pharmacy in Europe. I bet they just punch in some data to a web app and it does the actual cryptographic signing.

Yeah, but if they provide an web app that can create CSRs and automatically get them signed certificates, which then can be used to create QR codes, it is easy to provide traceable individual private keys for each pharmacy. E.g. when the pharmacy logs in, they just click "Generate Credentials" button, and they are done!

At least for my (Irish) pass the cert is signed by the Irish Health service.

So I expect each country’s national health service has been issued a key. But what mechanism for revocation might be there I’ve no idea.

These QR codes are the most obvious things to make, but they're also least useful as proof you've got the keys.

Certainly if you have a private key and you want to prove that you know the key, you can trivially make documents that only somebody with the key could make, that aren't documents any system would give people who don't have the key and yet also aren't useful fictitious documents if you're acting as a whistleblower.

That's what was done when a certificate reseller emailed the private keys of their customers to the CA they were reselling - for some reason that's unclear. The CA minted CSRs that showed they now knew the private key, without revealing what it is, and so we could all see that yup, somebody sent this CA the private keys, game over for those certificates.

[ PSA: They're called private keys, not secret keys or shared keys for a reason. Where possible you should choose your own private keys randomly and never reveal them to anybody ]

Nobody verified my code so far, they just eyeball the app. So the practical impact of such a leak is probably small, since people will fall for dumb forgeries already.

I had it verified constantly, both in airports and (on a trip to Italy) on pretty much every restaurant or bar I went to. I think it was only once that they were fine with showing it, all the others had scanners.

But did you have to show an ID or could you just show a John Doe certificate?

In the case of airports, ID was needed. For restaurants I guess I could have shown any valid QR.

Same here. Only when entering a non-EU country after flying there, they checked with a scanner. Nowhere else. Not that I do a lot of risky activities at the moment, though, so perhaps I've just gotten unlucky with the places where it should have been checked.

In Berlin this is wildly variable.

Some places have no checks at all; other places you need to show one of {show the QR code, use the Luca contact tracking site, fill out a paper form}; at least one needs the QR code and a valid ID card (not sure what, but excluding the health insurance cards despite those being photo ID).

They didn’t scan the QR codes in the places I’ve been to, they just looked at them. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen cargo-cult attitudes to how the content of mobile or tablet screens relates to security.

I don’t go out a lot, but I’ve had no verification in 2 restaurants and one bar so far. Just a check that it’s scrollable in one case, otherwise just that the name sounds like it could be mine. No scanning of the QR code, no ID check.

And I’m not even using the official app for Germany, but the "Corona Tracing" fork.

While I'm having great fun with my galaxy Fold, waving my huge QR code at the clubs all the way from the back of the line.

My experience was very mixed with my (limited) travel I did this year. In Austria they just eyeball your certificate. In Italy everyone used an app to verify the qr code (although I've still only gotten my ID checked once).

In Greece, the vast majority verifies certificates, with high-density venues like clubs asking for ID as well.

I was in Greece (Santorini) for the past 5 days and nobody asked about COVID certificate and hardly anyone wore a mask.

It varies widely by country. From personal experience and what I've heard from relatives, at private venues:

* Germany: usually quick glance at the QR code

* France: usually properly scanned

* Sweden: not even planned to be used

* Italy: usually properly scanned

* England: what is even covid

Honestly feels completely back to normal here, streets and bars are full of people again, definitely only about 30% still wearing masks.

Not endorsing it either way, just surprised how quickly everyone gave up on it here when places in Europe are still implementing passports and requiring scans to enter stores/restaurants.

There continues to be a dominant mainstream view that whatever Europe does, "we" have to do the opposite because "we" know better. The results are very clear in the infection numbers, with transmission ratio back to 1 and above.

It will be a long winter.

No there isn't. England has been mostly doing the same as neighbouring countries so far.

It hasn't implemented COVID passes yet because they're pointless. As BoJo pointed out just a few days ago, the pass is meaningless. Vaccinated people get infected and pass it on, and do so at the same rate as unvaccinated people (actually a higher rate in the UK at the moment).

> England has been mostly doing the same as neighbouring countries

Except it hasn't - on the mainland masks are still compulsory in loads of places, just to start. Look at the infection rates and tell me there is no obvious discrepancy with a straight face.

> COVID passes yet because they're pointless

They are not a medical instrument, they are a policy instrument. They are effectively a push to force the obtuse and obstinate novax constituency, which is still over 15%-20% all over, to get the jab, by forcing them to choose between daily invasive tests and a one-off vaccination. It's basically compulsory vaccination by the backdoor, so that they can hit 90%-95% vax rates.

> Vaccinated people get infected and pass it on,

Not if they keep using masks and hanging around with other vaxed people only. That's why the transmission rates on the continent are where we would expect them to be, and here they are out of control. If you give up all efforts like we've done, of course the virus spreads with or without passes.

Your beliefs about infection and transmission rates are wrong. The UK does vastly more testing than most European countries. Normalize by testing rate and the UK is no different to anywhere else. Here's an example query for you:

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...

At any rate, I'm curious why you still believe infection rates are linked to policy. There are so many counter-examples by now: for the UK specifically, after it had it's "Freedom Day" and removed masking requirements and other measures cases fell significantly and immediately. Florida got rid of all measures and now has one of the lowest rates in the USA. Studies have been done to measure the correlation between various types of policies and outcomes, always with a null result. Infection rates and policy just don't seem to be linked at all, sad though it is to say.

"They are not a medical instrument, they are a policy instrument"

And the UK already has very high vaccination rates. Well above the levels originally claimed to be needed, especially over 90% amongst the vulnerable, meaning they're pointless both on their face and if you treat them as a form of extra-judicial punishment.

I agree with you that they're actually the latter, but they're presented as a medical instrument by governments. Hence why testing and recovery gets you a certificate. If you view them as in reality being mandates that circumvent the judicial system then Europe - a continent that spent much of the 20th century as a basket case overrun with dictators and fascists - is once again lying to its people in the name of totalitarian control. Why on earth should England follow them down that road? It's one that's been walked before, always with horrific ends.

"Not if they keep using masks and hanging around with other vaxed people only"

I think you're just making things up now. No data indicates this that I'm aware of, transmission rates aren't "out of control" once you correct for testing rates and if vaccinated people only stop being infectious when wearing masks (lol) then it's not the vaccines stopping transmission, is it?

* Denmark: Usually only a quick glance at the QR code

* Switzerland: Usually, but not always, scanned

(Obviously anecdotal.)

Berlin: Seems like most places will actually scan it.

But, they do not check your id. You can just get a valid certificate from your friend (a screen shot even!), and enter the premises.

Definitely not my experience, I must have shown it hundreds of times and nobody has ever scanned it, not even in hospitals

In Germany I've had some people scroll/interact with the app to make sure it's not just a screenshot, but so far nobody ever scanned my QR code.

And what if it was a screenshot? What's wrong with a screenshot?

I'm alway taking screenshot of my qr code for boarding pass and things like that so I don't have to keep the airline app open and it works without network.

The easiest way to pretend you are vaccinated is to take a screenshot from somebody with the certificate and photoshop the name.

Of course that's trivial to detect by interacting with it or scanning the QR code (which won't match the photoshopped name).

I haven't had my Canadian QR code properly scanned once either.

I've had mine scanned a few times now, only when eating in. I'm in Ottawa FWIW, people seem to be doing it mostly right here. Kind of annoying that I have to show my ID too, but luckily they accept an OHIP card as ID, saves having to find my passport.

I’m also in Ottawa, for what it’s worth. I’ve found people were more thorough with the first non-QR system than the new one.

The only place that really checks with the app in my world is a sweaty dance club in Prague. This is actually very appropriate. They even match with my ID.

Exactly my experience. Not a fan of a vaccine pass, but I did show it at a restaurant they didn't even know what to do with it. Looked at it a bit confused, said 'yes, yes' and that was it. No check whatsoever. I don't mind that at all to be honest.

Airports check it, but other than that...

It seems like the Keys of one of the issuers got leaked, not the root keys so it looks like the fallout might be confined the the people who got their cert from that issuer (seems to be a french one). Or am I missing something?

What I read was they were seeing fake certificates - but these could be created by compromising the vax registration application and certificate download process.

It could be done by compromising a vaccine clinic tablet and issuing new records into the main WHO CoVAX record database under arbitrary names, and then collecting the fake passport image from the web interface citizens use.

I don't think you need to compromise the root certificate or signing keys to do this, there are easier ways. (But if I could put in a request for a Josef K., and an A. Solzhenitsyn novelty certificate, it would be a nice to have on my phone.)

If you are wondering about Vaccine QR codes, see this article that explains how the "shc" (SMART Health Card) protocol is used to generate and decode the QR.

https://marcan2020.medium.com/reversing-smart-health-cards-e...

This isn't an SHC[0] it's an HC1[1]

[0]: https://smarthealth.cards/ [1]: https://www.hc1.com/

Certificates in Sweden are valid for 3 months. So, if it's the same for Italy then it's not good but not catastrophic either.

Apparently the leaked keys have already been blacklisted. So all certificates signed with the leaked keys will need to be reissued. FWIW, it wasn't the Italian key that was leaked.

They seem to be quite thorough with checking QR certificates in Italy so it doesn't surprize me if this was discovered there.

Very anecdotally I spent three weeks in Italy this summer and my (UK) covid pass wasn't checked even once (In fact I also had to spend 5 days or something in isolation and nobody ever bothered to check or followup). I understand that compliance is very location specific.

In summer it wasn't yet mandatory AFAIK (and in fact Italy was using a slightly different certificate back then)

They got strict in the last month; now if you can't present a pass you might even be refused your salary. There have been demonstrations about this, as you might expect.

I agree that the tracing this summer was less than perfunctory, my brother had your same experience (his girlfriend wasn't even "declared", and nobody checked), and there was no Green Pass at all. Everyone wanted the tourists back so badly that the overall approach was to basically tick checkboxes and leave it at that. They got serious when it became clear the virus would be around all winter because of the Delta variant.

(Italian here) AFAIK Italy implemented the logic to be valid for 9 months, which wasn't ideal and it shows its limit in situations like this since we don't have a short expiry date.

Dunno if in the end they also put in place some kind of blacklisting for leaked certificates

What will last longer, the pandemic or a poorly implemented digital identity platform?

Given it is the same "poorly implemented digital identity platform" that has been in use for the last 40 years, and secures basically every form of non in person communication you conduct, I am expecting that to continue for a bit longer.

It's a shame the comment of throwawayfear has been flagged/censored as it is a valid discussion about the oppressive nature of these passports (and apparently the discussion about it).

In the Netherlands: As an unvaccinated individual you have to show a recent negative test before being able to enter a club/restaurant. So very low risk of unvaccinated people spreading Covid19. Yet, vaccinated individuals are allowed in, even when tested positive and feeling ill. There are numerous [0] cases of vaccinated individuals causing major outbreaks, resulting in the temporary closure of clubs and restaurants.

It's hard to believe these passports are about reducing hospital admissions or the public health especially in light of increased breakthrough cases [1].

[0] (Dutch) http://www.destentor.nl/zutphen/zutphens-cafe-camelot-weeken... https://www.rtvutrecht.nl/nieuws/3106637/ [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01413-7

> It's hard to believe these passports are about reducing hospital admissions or the public health

Go ahead.

Did literally anyone not see this coming? We all know the government can’t hold on to keys.

I fear this will be used as an excuse to make the passport system even more centralized.

Why the downvotes? For sure, this will just have us install (or have preinstalled) DRM-locked proprietary apps on our phones. Ugh.

Downvotes because governments regularly hold secrets for years, decades, sometimes centuries.

But yeah yeah, you can point to more than a few failures in the massive sample pool of “the government” so “government can’t hold keys.”

As opposed to private entities that are known to be able to keep keys secret all the time?

They didn’t suggest that at all.

Don't know if this is whst the OP has in mind, but the first thing that comes to my mind is the backdoor that many states want to impose on all encrypted communications. That would create a single point of attack, so even assuming competence, it makes the system significantly weaker. And this episode if confirmed makes competence a strong assumption.

It very much points to incompetence. I just don't think governments are specifically more incompetent than private entities in this case.

78 governments have ICAO private keys, and most have done so for >10 years now. If what "we all know" is true, then you should be able to find a leaked key easily. Try googling.

Or you might fall back to claiming that while governments evidently can hold on to ICAO private keys, they can't hold on to this other kind of private key, because...

Might be a matter of issuing bodies per country. Most countries have 1 passport issuing authority that’s used to thinking about security 1st, while they can have many covid certificate issuers. And many clinical authorities are not security 1st.

That's one option. The other is to regard the initial statement (that "We all know the government can’t hold on to keys") is false. Pick a test you believe to distinguish between the two. Say, whether the access keys for at least one database in a country that has >100 has leaked. Then google to see whether you can find such a leak.

> Did literally anyone not see this coming?

The system's designers did, which is why key revocation is built into the system. The practical effects of this leak will be the people who refused the app and don't read the news will be surprised when their paper certificates are rejected.

As far as I'm aware there was no technical solution for key revocation when the EU Covid Certificate was first launched in July. The only possibility I saw for revocation was to revoke the whole CA, instead of e.g CRL check.

Can you elaborate what makes you think that key revocation is built into the system?

I'm a bit confused by this also.

My understanding was that each node in a certificate tree/list consists of a key pair (public/private), and the entity metadata which needs to be verified. eg. the root CA has a private key that it uses to sign CAs, and those CAs have their own private key that it used to sign individual leaf node certificates.

Meanwhile, revocations are distributed as a separate CRL - certificate revocation list - which contains a list of certificates whose signees are no longer to be trusted. I'm not very clear on how this process works, but in any case I don't think keys can be revoked.

Finnish app[1] verifies as valid as of now. [1] https://thl.fi/en/web/infectious-diseases-and-vaccinations/w...

Just wonder, how any of you vaccine masterminds would explain how vax scanners for PEOPLE are comming and how will they detect if you really had the shot? How would that be possible without some magnetic stuff in you blood? Now you know why is so "important" to let go on the green pass, cause you ganna be a walking magnet for simple metal detectors, presented as state of the art new science.

Not sure why downvoted. This is a legitimate point. In Romania it's possible to get "sink vaccinated". That is, the doctor squirts the syringe into a sink instead of in you, and you get 100 % valid papers to show your local wannabe Arstotzka agent.

Having a covid passport proves nothing. They'll have to scan your blood like in Gattaca.

Turns out there's no certificate or keys leaked, but there was an exposed unsecured web service to generate GP from Poland. It has since been fixed, but apparently there's a couple more still around (Vietnam and such it seems).

For all practical everyday use, this doesn't matter. Nobody has ever even checked my ID card has the same name as in the app, let alone scanned the QR code to verify. They just glance and that gives them though plausible deniability to let me in.

Is there any particular reason for the leakage? I can't seem to find any on the website

Repository to verify QR codes locally: https://github.com/ehn-dcc-development/ehn-sign-verify-pytho...

Based on the information I've received, the private keys for all European countries have been leaked. There appears to be a centralised EU system where they all are stored.

Very worrying if true

It's also a ray of hope for people shut off from the world.

Great news, just further demonstrates that these systems should never have been built.

What's the alternative? Every winter months of lockdowns, economic disruption, overflowing hospitals and hundreds of thousands of needless deaths?

Just get your shots. Stop being pricks about it, it's not a big deal.

>What’s the alternative?

You said it yourself:

>Just get your shots. Stop being pricks about it, it's not a big deal.

Since fucking when do we need to build mass surveillance systems to encourage people to vaccinate?

Why does it need to be a big deal? I don’t give a shit about vaccines (had my 2 shots as soon as they were available), but I genuinely believe that people pushing for pervasive vaccine passes do not deserve to live. Fucking develop technology to test if I actually had the vaccine, don’t try to use this as an excuse to check my documents.

No, very good. There are European countries that have went full stasi with "papers, please".

Leaked private keys are liberation.

Imagine comparing a simple health measure to the Stasi. Some folks on here take individualism to pathological levels.

Starting with November 15, it will be illegal to employ unvaccinated people.

They already can't enter supermarkets or access any "non-essential" services.

"simple health measure", you literally need that + a form of ID to leave the home. And I cannot support that.

You need a passport to leave your country. You need a drivers license to drive a car. It's illegal to employ people without a work visa.

Relax. Don't pretend this is something new or the end of the world. This is how civilization works, through society making decisions on whats acceptable and what isn't. There's all sorts of sensible restrictions already and this is another one that makes sense.

There's no point in reasoning with you, if you believe that someone's private health information is a blanket reason to completely ruin their livelihood.

Would be lovely if you were put in a position where it's something you don't want to (or can't) do, or your own government takes away your entire livelihood. But it would be fine, because that's how civilisation works, through society making decisions on whats acceptable and what isn't. There's all sorts of sensible.

I would have a sweet, sweet "I told you so" moment, but I would still stand up for your rights.

That "private health information" is them attempting to ruin other people's livelihoods. This isn't some personal issue like high blood pressure, this is a highly infectious disease.

Stop pretending this is some kind of principled stand, it's just people wanting to be inconsiderate assholes and other people not wanting them to be.

Unvaccinated people aren't runing anyone's livelihood, except for taking a bigger risk on themselves.

It is a principled stand. I'm all for vaccination and I'm vaccinated myself, I don't care who's vaccinated and who's not. Making it illegal to employ unvaccinated people is inexcuseable.

This would be true if vaccines offered perfect 100% protection. Since they don't, individual protection is the product of the protection of everyone you interact with.

As such, unvaccinated people are a health risk to the vaccinated individual.

We don't allow all sorts of other health risks in the workplace, you can't be a drunk crane operator for example, so this is not some special new thing.

What is this "society" you speak of and when/where does it make these decisions?

Society is a group of people. In democratic societies those decisions are made through elections.

None of those are comparable.

* you can easily get a non-covid passport to leave the country * you need a driver's license to prove skill * it's illegal to enter a country illegally. Working without a visa isn't an issue because you're not allowed there to begin with.

But with covid, we've removed fundamental rights. Driving is not a right. Leaving your country and working (in your country) are rights... but not if you're a skeptic.

But about your examples, these things are now illegal but have never been:

* Australia doesn't allow you to leave the country even if you have a passport.

* In Romania you're not allowed to go outside without a mask and you're not allowed to go outside at night AT ALL if you're not vaccinated.

Even worse:

* France debated removing voting rights for non vaccinated people.

> This is how civilization works

You know which other people invoked civilization?

> you need a driver's license to prove skill

Just like you need a vaccine certificate to prove vaccination :)

> Leaving your country and working (in your country) are rights

Says who? Who defines those rights?

> these things are now illegal but have never been: [...]

> In Romania you're not allowed to go outside without a mask and you're not allowed to go outside at night AT ALL if you're not vaccinated.

Ceausescu declared a national curfew on December 20 1989.

> Australia doesn't allow you to leave the country even if you have a passport

Australia literally was a prison colony. You know, prisons, the things where people can't leave?

Both of these "unprecedented" things have precedent. You're over-exaggerating in your hysteria.

> You know which other people invoked civilization?

Please, enlighten me.

> > Leaving your country and working (in your country) are rights

> Says who? Who defines those rights?

UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

> > Australia doesn't allow you to leave the country even if you have a passport

> Australia literally was a prison colony. You know, prisons, the things where people can't leave?

Ok, I'm now fairly confident you're just trolling.

> Ok, I'm now fairly confident you're just trolling.

Why would you think I'm trolling? I demonstrated both examples you gave were invalid and all you did was try to derail the conversation.

> Ceausescu declared a national curfew on December 20 1989.

And then 5 days later the Ceausescus were sentenced to death and executed by a firing squad, the same fate that the proponents of covid passports deserve. I suppose that was your point.

I have no problem with the vaccines, I just don’t think it’s a reasonable excuse for anyone to ask my ID.

And I don't think there is anywhere near a consent on how far this kind of security should be driven.

Imagine comparing compulsory state mandated injections to the Stasi.

Do you even know what the Stasi did or are you just throwing scary buzzwords around? Hint: it had nothing to do with injections.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com