Re: Web Keys and HTTP Signatures

[Daniel Friesen <[e-mail]>]

On 13-04-18 6:42 AM, Manu Sporny wrote:
> On 04/17/2013 08:00 PM, Martin Thomson wrote:
>> Yeah, that's a pretty bad.  Switching two date-formatted headers 
>> might be a simple thing to gain advantage on.  (Last-Modified and 
>> Date, might work to poison a cache with old content if the cache 
>> isn't rigorous about checking Date).  It seems like a simple fix 
>> would be to include the list of headers under the signature as the 
>> first item.
> Carsten, James, Martin - good catch, thanks. We had assumed that the
> implementation included the headers names as well as the values in the
> data being digitally signed. As Dave Lehn pointed out, this is a work in
> progress, but we wanted to get something out as sooner than later.
>
> The attack is only possible if a message is passed over a non-secure
> channel, right? That is, the spec is clear about passing all messages
> over HTTPS. Granted, that's not an excuse for the approach taken and it
> should be fixed, but the attack is only possible if messages are sent
> over an insecure channel, correct?
>
> -- manu
>
You might want to think twice before you consider https implemented in
anything other than a web browser absolutely secure:
http://hueniverse.com/2010/09/oauth-bearer-tokens-are-a-terrible-idea/

~Daniel Friesen (Dantman, Nadir-Seen-Fire) [http://danielfriesen.name/]