Great product... - Clipperz

Message from discussion Great product...

Giulio Cesare Solaroli

More options Dec 21 2007, 1:23 pm

From: "Giulio Cesare Solaroli" <giulio.ces...@gmail.com>

Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 19:23:16 +0100

Local: Fri, Dec 21 2007 1:23 pm

Subject: Re: [clipperz] Great product...

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Hello Rich,

On 12/21/07, Rich Frenkel <r...@frenkelfamily.org> wrote:

> Hi,

> I like the concept and so far the execution of your product. One thing
> that I'd like to see would be a credible independent analysis of your
> security model and actual code. Another would be a credible
> independent certification of your company.

You may find some discussion about this topic here:
<http://www.clipperz.com/learn_more/crypto_foundations>

> It's impossible to sniff the packets that pass between my computer and
> the site since they're all encrypted.

If you want to take a look at what data is exchanged between your
browser and our server, you may want to use Firefox with the FireBug
extension.

FireBug allows to log all the details of the XHR requests your browser
sends to our servers; and since it is the browser itself to log the
data, the HTTPS layer causes no problem.

> I'd love to store all my passwords with you since an encrypted password
> is much more secure than using the same password everywhere, using
> short passwords, writing them down on pieces of paper etc.
> But clearly an organized crime group could pay for a nicely developed
> online password system... you get the idea.
> So credibility is everything :)

Sorry, but we don't share this interpretation of "security". :-)
Please, take a look at this post where we have written down the
definition of "zero-knowledge" application:
<http://www.clipperz.com/users/marco/blog/2007/08/24/anatomy_zero_know...>

The short version is: "if you need to trust us, something is severely
broken security wise".

We provide the full code of each version (and all the previous
versions are stored for reference, so you can also look for
differences between two versions), and we are also working on a way to
check that the code downloaded by the browser has not being tampered.

I access the application using this "alternate" url myself:
http://del.icio.us/gcsolaroli/clipperz

There you find an url that starts a script comparing the hash of the
page provided by our server against a known signature; if the two
don't match, a security warning is raised.

This solution is far from ideal, but this is the path we want to
follow. Not trust.

We perfectly understand that not everybody is willing or even able to
check through the code to "certify" it; but the code is published (all
the versions we have released are publicly available), and it would be
enough that a single person found a broken statement in it, to kill
the whole project and company.

More that this, the code is arranged to tunnel all the communications
with the server in a few well defined points (that I am more than
willing to point ou to any interesting party); it would be enough to
double check that all the information passing through these points is
correctly handled to ensure your data are not leaving your browser in
a clean format.

> I of course do believe that your system works like you say and that
> you are completely above board: this site looks like a labor of love not
> crime.

Thanks!!

We are really enjoying this project, and we are really putting all our
best effort to make it worthy.

> I think the company certification is probably the most important since
> code can be changed. If you can get some convincing testimonials, a
> big insurer to cover any breaches, etc. that would really help the
> confidence level.

We don't share this vision, but we are equally trying to build some
reputation about our company behaving at our best, being completely
transparent on any subject, even money:
<http://www.clipperz.com/users/marco/blog/2007/04/11/the_money_side_of...>

Thank you very much for your praise.

Best regards,

Giulio Cesare

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