OpenSSL 3.0 released; relicensed to Apache-2.0

by jabo • 5 years ago

161 66 5 years ago

gatronicus• 5 years ago

Since there were so many TLS security bugs due to it's complexity, is there any push to replace it with something simpler and with less choices and attack surface?

Google gave us HTTP/2/3, but don't seem to care about fixing TLS.

nemothekid• 5 years ago

Google gave us HTTP/2/3, but don't seem to care about fixing TLS.

Google is working on BoringSSL / Tink, which I believe is API compatible, but supports a lot less features. However I think a better way forward might be RustTLS, an implementation which is memory-safe. There is already support in Curl[1], showing there is a path forward for usage in languages other than Rust.

[1] https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2021/02/09/curl-supports-rustls/

whydoyoucare• 5 years ago

LibreSSL is an alternative from OpenBSD.

mrb2• 5 years ago

TLS the protocol has been simplified in version 1.3, with the goal of reducing complexity to improve security.

OpenSSL the implementation was forked a few times also with the goal of improving security. Notable forks: LibreSSL, BoringSSL.

PS: for all those confused why OpenSSL skipped version 2, it seems it's because FIPS builds identified themselves as version 2 (thanks to poster below!) Also the changelog explains the new version naming scheme:

"""

Switch to a new version scheme using three numbers MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH.

Major releases (indicated by incrementing the MAJOR release number) may introduce incompatible API/ABI changes.

Minor releases (indicated by incrementing the MINOR release number) may introduce new features but retain API/ABI compatibility.

Patch releases (indicated by incrementing the PATCH number) are intended for bug fixes and other improvements of existing features only (like improving performance or adding documentation) and retain API/ABI compatibility.

"""

Quoted from: https://www.openssl.org/news/changelog.html So there won't be a 3.0.0a, 3.0.0b, etc. They want to make it clear it will be 3.0.1, 3.0.2, etc

geofft2• 5 years ago

It's also because the FIPS builds of OpenSSL 1.x identified themselves as 2.x.

wolf550e• 5 years ago

TLS 1.3 is much better than TLS 1.2, and has fewer options and knobs (e.g. no need to choose cipher suites), but it is not what a modern protocol designed from scratch would look like. For that you should look at WireGuard, or the general Noise Protocol Framework.

For custom protocols, libsodium would be a popular modern approach. If you need compatibility with TLS, try locking down TLS to only version 1.3, or if you can't do that, lock it down to only TLS 1.2 with tls_ecdhe_rsa_with_aes_128_gcm_sha256.

chasil2• 5 years ago

This has been useful advice for many years, although restricting to AEAD is best when possible.

https://hynek.me/articles/hardening-your-web-servers-ssl-cip...

nwjsmith• 5 years ago

Google employ at least one OpenSSL committer and have their own simpler version of the library, BoringSSL.

jborean93• 5 years ago

IIRC HTTP3/QUIC mandates TLS[1][2] so it itself still relies on TLS. It seems like it's set on TLS 1.3 as a baseline and I would hope the negotiation of the protocol is future compatible but I will admit I haven't fully read the RFCs.

[1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc9000#section-1 [2] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc9001

kingforaday2• 5 years ago

I am surprised by the lack of corporate sponsors [1].

1. https://www.openssl.org/support/acks.html

kelnos• 5 years ago

I'm not, sadly. It's pretty standard in our industry that companies will use a ton of open source software without giving back at all, or giving back many orders of magnitude less than they get.

kingforaday2• 5 years ago

It may be an awareness problem too. I know personally I've enjoyed having OpenSSL around and just became a GitHub sponsor (under same HN username).

Teknoman117• 5 years ago

Reminds me of a tweet I saw:

"the most consequential figures in the tech world are half guys like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, and the other half are some guy named Ronald who maintains a tool called 'RUNK' which stands for 'Ronald's Universal Number Kounter' and handles math for every machine on Earth"

gtirloni• 5 years ago

https://www.openssl.org/community/thanks.html

"The following organizations who contribute staff time to work on the project (alphabetically): Akamai, Cryptsoft, Google, Oracle, Red Hat, Siemens, and Softing."

MR4D• 5 years ago

Uncredited is the NSA.

andrewstuart2• 5 years ago

Another thing to consider here is that many times, larger corporations are required to comply (or internally have hangups about not complying) with FIPS. And at least as far as I can tell, there are only a few older versions of OpenSSL compatible with a legacy FIPS module. Honestly I have given up on the politics of it so I may be incorrect, but I know the few times I've brought it up at (soon to be former) employer, that has come up.

IncRnd5• 5 years ago

OpenSSL sells support contracts ranging from $15,000 to $50,000. [1]

[1] https://www.openssl.org/support/contracts.html

j_walter2• 5 years ago

Rarely does the NSA get added to the list of corporate sponsors though...

fsckboy• 5 years ago

I am surprised by the lack of corporate sponsors

you energized me to look into donating, turns out the OpenSSL Software Foundation is a Delaware non-profit, but not a US 501c3, so not tax deductible at the federal level.

https://www.openssl.org/support/donations.html

LeoPanthera• 5 years ago

Maybe this is paranoid but they tell you how to check the hash of the download using openssl itself.

A compromised version of openssl could detect itself and return the "correct" hash.

beebmam2• 5 years ago

This makes sense if you don't check a package's hash before you install it.

CodeWriter23• 5 years ago

Or if you have supply chain-hacked version installed by your Distro that grabs the hash from the download page.

j_walter2• 5 years ago

Use your current version of openssl...

ronsor• 5 years ago

... and if your current version of openssl is already compromised, nobody can help you anyway.

jamesmishra• 5 years ago

Agreed.

For other HN users, this is the "Reflections on Trusting Trust" issue.

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_Ref...

kccqzy• 5 years ago

Don't you check for the hash before you begin compiling? If not, you are in serious trouble.

wbl3• 5 years ago

Do you enjoy perl constructed header files? VMS support? Inconsistent error codes across APIs? Then OpenSSL is for you.

None of the problems have been fixed.

ncann• 5 years ago

Reminds me of this classic:

https://web.archive.org/web/20201224212934/https://www.peere...

seneca• 5 years ago

Did they reject the PRs you sent implementing those updates?

skissane• 5 years ago

VMS support?

Is it a bad thing to support OpenVMS, given it is still an actively maintained operating system? It isn't used anywhere near as much as it used to be, but it is still used. It has even been ported to x86-64.

saurik2• 5 years ago

Some people (absolutely not me: I refuse to even work with such people) believe that supporting anything other than their computer is not just a waste of resources, but a bug.

stusmall• 5 years ago

I remember stumbling into that perl codegen years ago and just being horrified. I haven't done any OpenSSL internal work in years and recently I tried to find it and couldn't. I thought maybe it was just a vivid nightmare.

saurik2• 5 years ago

In what way was using Perl horrifying? Is it that they weren't using whatever flavor-of-the-week stylish language everyone now thinks is "cool", like some ridiculous node.js stack in Typescript? If they were using Python--which FWIW is extremely common in the build script space--would you have been any less "horrified"? :/

geofft2• 5 years ago

It's called "perlasm." First Google hit finds it, if you happen to want to see it again :)

(Though it's not header files, so I wonder if 'wbl was thinking of something else.)

pengaru• 5 years ago

This is being discussed on the systemd-devel mailing list as well @ https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2021-Se...

dang• 5 years ago

Recent and related:

OpenSSL 3.0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28443714 - Sept 2021 (54 comments)

OpenSSL 3.0 released; relicensed to Apache-2.0

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