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Comment by Spooky23 | Hacker News Reader

This stance is counterproductive in my eyes.

Lots of security standards, including state/local government and some healthcare environments require FIPS compliance. FIPS isn't perfect, but screens out low-quality crypto implementations that most organizations lack the expertise to evaluate.

Dual_EC and that ilk is obviously a serious problem, but FIPS validation addresses other pertinent problems -- like my doctor's office securing my private data with a more trivially flawed/bogus encryption implementation.

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Nonsense.

What would you do if you where the NSA and you've now been repeatedly caught lying, bribing (RSA dual ec), and backdooring (dual ec) security software? At this point, you have a problem: working for the nsa probably taints you in the eyes of many, and nobody (rightly) trust you.

But what nation states do have is money and bribery. So you do two things: you attempt to subvert (oh, your brother got busted for dui? We know the judge and can make those charges go away or he can do a dime in state; feeling cooperative now?) developers, and you can do your best to make the code shit and as complex as possible in the hopes that if it's awful enough, somewhere in there is a security issue. Since you can afford to buy as many devs as needed, you can probably find them. I saw the phrase coined on here and unfortunately don't recall the source, but the future of backdoors is probably bugdoors. So Libressl -- rip out shit code, reduce complexity, remove unnecessary algorithms and implementations to further remove complexity -- is the necessary fix. Every option in a program increases net complexity, typically in a factorial manner, and complicates testing. What we need is simple, tested, secure code that handles the minimal use cases for web browsers and web servers. It doesn't need to support dead oses, dead compilers, or the government's wish list of complexity inducing certifications.

You're conflating two issues.

FIPS validation means that you're using a reasonable set of algorithms. Like any standard they are imperfect and their development lags the state of the art in some cases. In my daily business, I worry more about casual incompetence, as it has a more direct affect on my boring daily life.

Re: Your rant about the NSA bribing people, etc.

Why do you magically trust OpenBSD? Much of the projects early funding was via DARPA. Whose to say the project leaders aren't NSA plants?

>Why do you magically trust OpenBSD?

It isn't magical. I've spoken to many of them. I've seen the work they've done over the last 15 years. They earned my trust.

>Much of the projects early funding was via DARPA

No, a relatively small amount was via DARPA, and that funding was pulled due to Theo criticizing the US government. And that was not early in the project, it was like 8 years into the project's life. Doesn't really scream "NSA plants".

Compliance is needed just so that you can get it checked off on a list. It does not necessarily mean that you are safer. It could mean better safety but does not guarantee it.

What it does provide is that in the wake of an incident, the ability to say: "Hey! But I was PCI, FIPS, HIPAA, FedRamp etc. compliant!"

It Provides: significant mitigation of civil liability

I realize it does not mesh well with the narrative you are trying to advance but take a look at the difference in HIPAA fines for an individual/organization that demonstrated reasonable diligence and another that willfully neglected HIPAA:

                        Per violation  Annual Maximum
  Reasonable Diligence  $100           $25,000
  Willful Neglect       $50,000        $1,500,000

http://www.ama-assn.org//ama/pub/physician-resources/solutio...

It means that senior executives can wash their hands of the matter. They did their job correctly, they'll argue.

As they said, someone else is perfectly free (it's a BSD license) to use their work to build a libfips.

They point they were making that wasn't clearly elaborated upon is that the code in OpenSSL for FIPS compliance is a charade and is only there to satisfy FIPS requirements. The presence of that code doesn't guarantee or ensure the anything.

These compliance standards generally exist to deflect liability in the event of a breech and aren't necessarily there to protect anything. Take PCI for example, much of the DSS requirements are verified by audit and if you've ever gone through the audit, it's mostly certification without verification. The auditor usually trusts that things like segmentation diagrams are accurate. There's a level of accountability but it's primarily about deflecting liability.

Yup. And it's simpler and therefore more secure to support a smaller codebase without magical modes.

FIPS mode is like a clipboard audit. It appears to fulfill a requirement like A+ certifications do for hiring qualified candidates, but instead puts blind faith in process ahead of content.

Its one thing to certify a doctor and another to certify software.

There are formal proofs for software. FIPS doesnt work with software, it takes 6 months just to pass the process??

What does FIPS mean if after the 6th month another heartbleed is found? FIPS remains but the product is useless.

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