Top all-time · #956
Nate Lawson
Personal blog · rdist.root.orgsecurityhardwaregames
Nate Lawson writes rdist, a personal blog at rdist.root.org about security, hardware and games. Since 2008, 72 different Hacker News readers have linked it 162 times, most often “All the reasons why you shouldn't do JavaScript Crypto”. The last post was in 2022, but the archive is still widely read.
Embedded security, cryptography, software protection
Most-linked posts?
- All the reasons why you shouldn't do JavaScript Crypto14 people · 19 mentions · first linked 2010-11-29
- Nate Lawson Breaks Google Keyczar's HMAC Crypto Signatures5 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2009-05-29
- Timing-independent array comparison5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2010-01-08
- H(m || k) also insecure, you really should use HMAC4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2009-10-29
- Exploiting remote timing attacks4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2010-07-19
- Stuxnet is embarrassing, not amazing4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2011-01-17
- Exploiting common crypto flaws (Google Tech Talk)3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2009-08-07
- /2010/01/27/how-the-ps3-hypervisor-was-hacked/3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-01-25
- /2010/11/19/dsa-requirements-for-random-k-value/3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2010-12-30
- Quantum cryptography is useless2 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2010-03-09
What Hacker News says?
Sending code to a desktop is easy to detect. Sending code to a non-web-based mobile app is easy to detect. Sending code to a browser isn't even detectable. In practice, no one audits JavaScript. If browsers offered the means to detect changes to cached content, security experts[1][2][3] would be less grim about webpage security. Encryption done in untrusted JavaScript is security theater. If these websites offered p…
Comment linking /2010/11/29/final-post-on-javascript-crypto/
on “I'm giving up on PGP”Submitted The lost Van Jacobson paper that could save the Internet as a story · 280 points
HN discussionSee: https://rdist.root.org/2010/07/19/exploiting-remote-timing-a... and Crosby 2007. I got into infosec around 06 and tptacek, Nate Lawson and some others were my heroes. Now I run my own consulting firm with a bunch of cool people :) Also in infosec: what is old is new. We still find shitty comparison routines (timing attacks) and SQL injection... some day :)
Comment linking /2010/07/19/exploiting-remote-timing-attacks/
on “Visa Advertising Solutions (VAS) Opt Out”Submitted Stuxnet was embarrassing, not amazing (2011) as a story · 121 points
HN discussionAh! Dead-listing! I learned the term from this old blog post by Nate Lawson: https://rdist.root.org/2008/07/03/dead-listing-while-on-vaca... “What do I do on long plane rides or while listening to the waves lap against the beach? Dead-listing. Dead-listing is analyzing the raw disassembly of some target software and figuring it out using only pen and paper. This is great for vacations because your laptop won’t get s…
Comment linking /2008/07/03/dead-listing-while-on-vacation/
on “An opinionated guide on how to reverse engineer software”Submitted Stuxnet is embarrassing, not amazing (2011) as a story · 117 points
HN discussion"To add to this madness, even if you design your own chips and software stack, you the fab that printed your chips might have modified your design" True, changes can be so subtle, remember how the Playstation were hacked on the basis of altering the current provided to the CPU? "His approach is clever and is known as a “glitching attack“. This kind of hardware attack involves sending a carefully-timed voltage pulse…
Comment linking /2010/01/27/how-the-ps3-hypervisor-was-hacked/
on “There are no secure smartphones”Submitted Stuxnet is embarrassing, not amazing as a story · 72 points
HN discussionThanks for sharing aes.io. That's the first I've heard of this service. Since their a web app with client-side encryption, I presume their using javascript. If so, any idea how they address the problems mentioned in this post ( http://rdist.root.org/2010/11/29/final-post-on-javascript-cr... ). Update: Looks like they are using some kind of embedded flash. Does that mean a flash or actionscript cryptography implement…
Comment linking /2010/11/29/final-post-on-javascript-crypto/
on “Watch what you store on SkyDrive–you may lose your Microsoft life”Submitted Nate Lawson Breaks Google Keyczar's HMAC Crypto Signatures as a story · 62 points
HN discussionSome blogs I like (most are not updated very frequently, though): Billy Rios (discovered GIFAR) http://xs-sniper.com/blog/ Michal Zalewski (one of the top security researchers in the world, wrote "The Tangled Web", a must-read) http://lcamtuf.blogspot.com Neal Poole: https://nealpoole.com/blog/ Nir Goldshlager: http://www.nirgoldshlager.com/ Michael Brooks: https://sitewatch.me/en/Blog Nils Jünemann: http://www.nils…
Comment linking /
on “How we hacked Facebook with OAuth2 and Chrome bugs”Submitted H(m || k) also insecure, you really should use HMAC as a story · 50 points
HN discussionhttp://rdist.root.org/2010/11/29/final-post-on-javascript-cr...
Comment linking /2010/11/29/final-post-on-javascript-crypto/
on “Dropbox Lack of Security”Submitted Reverse-engineering a smart meter as a story · 41 points
HN discussionRight. Nate Lawson has some thoughts on why at https://rdist.root.org/2010/05/03/why-buffer-overflow-exploi... and https://rdist.root.org/2010/05/05/why-buffer-overflow-exploi...
Comment linking /2010/05/05/why-buffer-overflow-exploitation-took-so-long-to-mature-part-2/
on “Phrack Magazine (1985-2016)”Submitted Encrypted Google Docs done well as a story · 38 points
HN discussionWould a broken RNG be a risk to leak private keys? As in, even if the key was generated on a safe kernel, merely using the key to encrypt or sign data on the broken kernel would compromise the keys? This article mentions DSA private keys and poor RNGs: http://rdist.root.org/2010/11/19/dsa-requirements-for-random...
Comment linking /2010/11/19/dsa-requirements-for-random-k-value/
on ““RNG broken for last 4 months””Submitted Exploiting common crypto flaws (Google Tech Talk) as a story · 36 points
HN discussionIn California, our toll transponders (FasTrak) are spuriously read at the LAX airport, merely for tracking reasons, not for billing. Interesting reverse-engineering of FasTrak transponders in 2008: http://rdist.root.org/2008/08/07/fastrak-talk-summary-and-sl...
Comment linking /2008/08/07/fastrak-talk-summary-and-slides/
on “E-ZPasses Get Read All Over New York (Not Just At Toll Booths)”Submitted Building a USB protocol analyzer as a story · 35 points
HN discussionNate Lawson has a good explanation of timing attacks (against my own code): http://rdist.root.org/2009/05/28/timing-attack-in-google-key...
Comment linking /2009/05/28/timing-attack-in-google-keyczar-library/
on “Telegram Bot Platform”Submitted NaCl: DJB’s new crypto library as a story · 31 points
HN discussionNo signatures yet. See this summary I wrote a while back for more info. http://rdist.root.org/2009/07/14/nacl-djbs-new-crypto-librar...
Comment linking /2009/07/14/nacl-djbs-new-crypto-library/
on “Everything you need to know about cryptography in 1 hour”Submitted Smart meter crypto flaw worse than thought as a story · 27 points
HN discussionOverall, I think this talk best applies as a starting point for learning about crypto. Take Colin's recommendations as signposts to underlying research. Why would he dislike DSA? Hint: it requires a secure RNG at signing time while RSA only requires one at key generation time. http://rdist.root.org/2009/05/17/the-debian-pgp-disaster-tha... However, I don't think he achieved the stated goal of teaching you enough to…
Comment linking /2009/05/17/the-debian-pgp-disaster-that-almost-was/
on “Everything you need to know about cryptography in 1 hour”Submitted Why buffer overflow exploitation took so long to mature as a story · 26 points
HN discussionI wrote about this mistake before. Developers see a single-line RHS expression and think it evaluates without branching. http://rdist.root.org/2010/01/07/timing-independent-array-co...
Comment linking /2010/01/07/timing-independent-array-comparison/
on “Everything you need to know about cryptography in 1 hour”Submitted Amazon WS Crypto Sigs v2 Broken (Even Amazon Can't Get Crypto Right) as a story · 23 points
HN discussionThis is not Hex-rays output. It is much better than this. This is boomerang, which is a free decompiler that hasn't been maintained much lately. You'll note that not much has been updated on their page since 2006. http://boomerang.sourceforge.net/ This github project is pretty much useless for those who want to learn about Stuxnet. Better to load the binary into IDA Freeware instead. Stuxnet does appear to be an unu…
Comment linking /2011/01/17/stuxnet-is-embarrassing-not-amazing/
on “Stuxnet is now on GitHub”Submitted Why RSA encryption padding is critical (cool RSA implementation flaw) as a story · 22 points
HN discussion
