CTE SUA SEGURIDAD DE UTILIZACIÓN Y ACCESIBILIDAD

Back at Reuben’s place, Reuben and MadFast were going over the docu- mentation that came with the software, gladly examining its feature set. “My God, they came up with a way around key escrow. It’s clever, but incredibly stupid. Get this; they designed it specifically so you can re-create the keys to any past session.” Reuben was beyond belief.

MadFast looked up from the computer.They’d been taking turns reading and playing games, mixing it up to make the work a bit more enjoyable. It was going to be a late night, they both knew, and there was no sense in not having fun during it. “Okay, I’m getting offline, I’ve got to see this. I don’t even care that I’m the second-to-last man standing and

that I’ll lose by forfeit.” He disconnected the game session of Unreal Tournament and got up from the desk.

Reuben handed over the documentation. “It’s all here, check it out.” MadFast read it over. “I’ll be damned. Look at this…they did it so that law enforcement could come back to the people running the VPN with a court order and a network capture, and ask for the key. But the way they wrote it, you could replace ‘administrator’ with ‘hacker’ and it sounds like a kind of road map of how to compromise the traffic.”

Reuben looked over his shoulder at the text again. “Shit, you’re right! I guess that’s something to go on our list, isn’t it?” He grinned wickedly. They were having fun; ever since they got their hands on the software and documentation, the path ahead seemed quite clear.Things were no longer theoretical, and they could get their teeth into the work. Best of all, a very clear attack pattern was forming for them. Reuben felt much better for having done his original plan; it turned out to be quite helpful, as they modified it but nonetheless stuck to the basic roadmap it offered.

“That’s going to require a reverse-engineering job, from the sounds of it. They have two-factor authentication protecting the software to do that,” Reuben considered.“Unless we get really lucky and can break the authenti- cation outright, you’ll have to step through the software and find the func- tions that do that job.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, but hey, it’s worth it. If it works like I think it works, there’s no safety for the session if you can do that.You could generate the session key so fast that you’d be decrypting traffic before the session was over, and you’d be able to decrypt all of it.”

“Good point. If we can do that, right there it’s a game-over situation. Hell, even at this stage I’d say it’s a safe bet, as we know what we’d have to do already. Doing it is just a matter of time. We should put it off, I think,” Reuben added, “since we have so many other things to try first. Can you try just tracing DLL calls and maybe we’ll get lucky and find all the func- tions in one DLL off by itself?”

“Yeah, good idea. And you’re right, we won’t get much else covered if we just go after that. Okay, so what’s next?”

“We install it on Monday, and have at it. And see what else we can think of this weekend besides what we’ve done so far. But as far as I’m

concerned, we’re off the clock now, so we can just chill. Want another beer? I’ve got some Trappist-style ale.”

“What’s that?”

Reuben smiled; he loved beer, good beer, and loved introducing others to it. “Okay, some background. In Europe, there are a handful of monas- teries, mostly in Belgium I think, that make beer.Trappist monks, you see, produce some kind of product, so that the monastery can survive. Well, the beer that these monasteries make is particularly good, and tends to have a unique kind of character. Now some breweries are trying to copy the style, and some do a pretty decent job. It requires a careful balance of malt and hops like any good beer, but it also requires yeast with a particular char- acter. Here, you’ll see what I mean.” He went into the kitchen, and returned a minute later with two glasses of golden beer, each with a sub- stantial head. “Here you go.”

MadFast took the beer, looking at it. “Looks good. How do you know so much about beer?”

“I homebrew…used to, that is. I got out of the habit for a while. I need to start again though, I miss it.”

“Right on. How hard is it?”

“Not hard at all. It’s like cooking, really. At first, you start out just fol- lowing directions and use a kit that you buy. But then, as you get more into it, you read about how to improve your beer, and you learn a lot about beer in general. One thing though, after you do homebrewing, if you’re any good at it at all, you won’t be able to drink bad beer ever again. It’s like losing your innocence, only in a good way.”

MadFast took a sip of the beer. “Wow, it’s…it’s kind of sweet, almost.” “Yeah, that’s the effect of the yeast. But it’s not heavy, or too sweet; that’s the hops and the alcohol. Speaking of which, this beer is a lot stronger than most. It’s got quite a kick.”

“Right on. So I guess we’re done working for the night, huh?” “Cheers!”The glasses clinked together.

Washington, DC: