summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/doc/todo/sha1_collision_embedding_in_git-annex_keys.mdwn
blob: 7acbfde13c7848bc2167baeec16fb845d6ed8cb6 (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
Some git-annex backends allow embedding enough data in the names of keys
that it could be used for a SHA1 collision attack. So, a signed git commit
could point to a tree with such a key in it, and the blob for the key could
have two versions with the same SHA1.

Users who want to use git-annex with signed commits to mitigate git's own
SHA1 insecurities would like at least a way to disable the insecure
git-annex backends:

* WORM can contain fairly arbitrary data in a key name
* URL too (also, of course, URLs download arbitrary data from the web,
  so a signed git commit pointing at URL keys doesn't have any security
  even w/o SHA1 collisions)
* SHA1 and MD5 backends are insecure because there can be colliding
  versions of the data they point to.

A config setting to prevent git-annex from using insecure backends would be
useful.

(git-annex might suggest enabling that configuration if commit.gpgSign
is enabled)

A few other potential problems:

* `*E` backends could embed sha1 collision data in a long filename
  extension. It might be worth limiting the length
  of an extension allowed in such a key to the longest such extension
  git-annex has ever supported (probably < 20 bytes or so), which would
  be less than the size of the data needed for current SHA1 collision attacks.
* It might be possible to embed colliding data in a specially constructed
  key name with an extra field in it, eg "SHA256-cXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX-...".
  Need to review the code and see if such extra fields are allowed.  
  Update: All fields are numeric, but could contain arbitrary data
  after the number. (fixed now)