[Freedombox-discuss] Steps for integrating in Monkeysphere to Freedombox

[znoteer at hailmail.net]

Marc,

I also didn't fully comprehend monkeysphere.  Thanks for the awesome 
explanation
-- 
  
  znoteer at hailmail.net


On Tue, Dec 22, 2015, at 21:24, Marc Jones wrote:
> Petter,
> 
> TL;DR;. Monkeysphere lets you use the PGP Web of trust to replace the
> certificate cartel to authenticate SSL and SSH keys. Basically you can
> transform a PGP key into SSH and SSL keys. Monkeysphere might be best
> thought of as a clever way to distributed public keys so when you setup
> an encrypted tunnel using your private key, the person on the other side
> can verify it is you by looking at your public key. You can watch a
> DebConf video the monkeysphere folks did back in 2010 here:
> http://penta.debconf.org/dc10_schedule/events/572.en.html. Support for
> monkeysphere in Freedombox was one of the original ideas Eben Moglen had.
> 
> Standard SSH works with monkeysphere without modification. SSL Client
> certificates work with all major browsers, but to take advantage of the
> Web of Trust webservers need to support it. The webserver used by
> Freedombox already supports it.
> 
> Since OpenPGP smartcards work with GPG agents (or they should cause why
> else would you want one) they will work with Monkeysphere too.
> 
> Long Answer:
> 
> Monkeysphere does a few different things so it can be a little confusing
> at first (or it least it was to me.) Personal I felt like it took a
> while to wrap my mind around what it does. So first I will explain what
> Monkeysphere does and then I will talk about the original idea for
> integrating Monkeysphere into the Freedombox.
> 
> Monkeysphere's basic idea is that PGP, SSH, and SSL certificates are
> just using RSA public/private key pairs. But they all have different
> trust models for verifying keys. PGP provides a web of trust that is
> based on a peer to peer module of authenticating key pairs (i.e. signing
> your friend's PGP keys).
> 
> SSH does not really have any way of doing key authentication. Both user
> and host keys are verified out of band. If you connect to a new SSH host
> or the SSH host changes the key the only thing you can do is call the
> SSH server administrator to verify the key (or do what most people do
> and blindly accept the new key). Similarly logging in using keys over
> SSH is based on the fact that at one point you knew the password to log
> into the account to upload your public key or some out of band mechanism
> for key exchange with the server admin.
> 
> SSL keys for Websites rely on the "certificate cartel" where all of the
> CA's have the authority to assert any key is valid for any domain and
> you have no choice but to trust all or none of the assertions made by
> the cartel.
> 
> The Monkeysphere project asked the question: why if these three programs
> are all based on RSA keys do they have different trust models. Why can't
> we use the PGP Web of Trust with SSH and with websites. Monkeysphere
> basically lets you use the Web of Trust with SSH and SSL. It provides a
> way of authenticating SSH hosts and distributing (and revoking) SSH
> login keys based on the Web of Trust. It also in more advanced usages
> provides a replacement for the CA cartels by doing Web server
> authentication based on the web of trust and provides a way of doing
> client certificate authentication.
> 
> So there are a few different ways to use monkeysphere and all our
> independent of each other and can be mixed and matched.
> 
> 1) You can published the current host key for SSH server on the Web of
> Trust. Any one that trusts keys you sign will automatically trust the
> SSH server key. If you generate a new ssh host key, just republish the
> key to the web of trust. No more scare warning messages the first time
> someone connects to your SSH server.
> 
> 2) You can give secure access to a remote user when you only know thier
> email address. Just tell monkeysphere what email address should have the
> ability to SSH into an account. It will search the web of trust for the
> public key of the person with that email who is within your web of
> trust. That person can then ssh into your server using their pgp key.
> Monkeypshere takes care of automatically transforming the public PGP key
> into a public SSH key on the server. On the client the private PGP key
> is transformed into a private SSH key using your GPG agent. It is easy
> to replace your SSH key on servers that support monkeysphere because you
> just have to publish a new public key to the web of trust. The servers
> will auto update your public SSH key.
> 
> 3) You can log into a website using a client SSL certificate. The
> webserver will verify it is a valid key that belongs to you by checking
> the web of trust. This works with all major web browsers. Basically you
> transform your PGP key into a SSL client certificate. Connect to a
> website that supports monkeysphere SSL client certificate verification.
> If you are in the web site owner's web of trust you are automatically
> logged into all web apps that support Apache authentication on that
> server. The only web server I know of right now that supports this is
> Apache with mod_gnu_tls. (which is what Freedombox users)
> 
> 4) You can use monkeysphere to create server ssl certificates that do
> not rely on the certificate cartels. This requires a browser plug-in on
> the client side but works with all web servers that suppport SSL. You
> create a SSL certificate based on a PGP key and publish the public key
> in the web of trust. When the client connects the client verifies the
> server's SSL certiicate against the client's web of trust. Free server
> ssl certificates might seem less relevant now that Let's Encrypt exists,
> but keep in mind that Let's Encrypt still needs to play by the cartel's
> rules even if they do not charge for server certs. That means no SSL
> certificates for .local or nonstandard DNS TLDs like .onion. Since
> monkeysphere certs are self generated you could make your SSL
> certificate for a .local or .onion address. (See relevant tor pages for
> discussion/debate on if SSL certs are needed when accessing hidden
> services).
> 
> One of the original ideas for the Freedombox was to allow users to use
> SSL Client certificates to authenticate to plinth. Basically this
> eliminates the need for users to remember passwords. You can even use
> the same certificate to authenticate to different FreedomBoxes, so you
> can move from FreedomBox to FreedomBox without worrying about
> remembering passwords. We could also allow SSH access using
> monkeysphere. Basically a user would have the option of making a
> Freedombox that have any passwords to guess, to forget, or to brute
> force since Monkeysphere makes certificate/key authentication possible
> using stock SSH and web browsers.
> 
> -Marc
> 
> 
> 
> On 12/21/2015 03:24 AM, Petter Reinholdtsen wrote:
> > [Marc Jones]
> >> As we discussed before we want to get the SSL Client certificate auth
> >> integrated into freedombox for the 0.8 release. I put a proposal in to
> >> present a libreplanet in March and I think this would be a cool thing to
> >> show off.
> > 
> > I have never quite understood what Monkeysphere does, or in what use
> > case it is useful.  Could you perhaps explain a bit more which users
> > such authentication would be useful for, and how the user would operate
> > to make use of these SSL client certificates?  Where would Monkeysphere
> > fit in?
> > 
> >> But I think it will be a great foundation to doing more stuff because
> >> it is a first step in having our freedomboxes know about PGP. (Maybe
> >> one day we can use PGP to allow FBXs to exchange data with each
> >> other. FBX backups perhaps!)
> > 
> > I agree we should get PGP/GPG stuff into the default Freedombox setup,
> > and I would really love it for us ot support OpenPGP smart cards out of
> > the box, allowing us to store the GPG key on the box in a way that would
> > block it from being easily copied out of the box.
> > 
> > My initial testing using gpg2 and a smart card on Raspberry Pi did not
> > work.  I never had time to check why not, and hope the issue will not
> > block me from using GPG with RPI as my FreedomBox.
> > 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Marc Jones
> Counsel
> Software Freedom Law Center
> 1995 Broadway, 17th Floor
> New York, NY 10023
> Tel: 212-461-1919
> Fax: 212-580-0898
> Email: mjones at softwarefreedom.org
> www.softwarefreedom.org
> 
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