[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#14350) RSA based authentication

["Jason Short" <jdorje@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://bugs.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=14350 >

Mateusz Stefek wrote:
> <URL: http://bugs.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=14350 >
> 
> Dnia 2005-10-16 18:10:42, Jason Short napisał(a):
> 
>><URL: http://bugs.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=14350 >
>>
>>Mateusz Stefek wrote:
>>
>>><URL: http://bugs.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=14350 >
>>>
>>>This patch encrypts passwords sent to the server using RSA algorithm
>>
>>and
>>
>>>openSSL library.
>>>
>>>The patch misses a feature of reading a key from external file.
>>>Currently the key is regenerated every time the server is run.
>>
>>Doesn't that mean the password will be different every time the server
>>is run?  Or is the key that is generated always the same?
> 
> 
> I don't understand you. I said that the RSA private key of the server  
> is always regenerated. This is bad for security reasons. Ideally the  
> private key should be generated only once to prevent man-in-the-middle  
> attacks.

Ahh, the server key; I understand.

As I said I feel a one-way encryption would be sufficient.  This doesn't 
prevent someone from taking over your account but it does prevent your 
password from being compromised - since many people may (foolishly) use 
the same password this is probably the most important goal.

Using TLS prevents passwords from being taken en-route.  But if the 
password is still stored in plain-text in the database it may still be 
stolen from there.  Using a fixed one-way encryption (hash) would 
prevent these from being stolen.  This hash may be done at either server 
or client.

>>Finally, the feature should perhaps be a compile-time option.
> 
> Maybe. There are some licensing problems with openSSL. I'm quite sure  
> we can use it under Linux. I'm not sure about Windows platform, since  
> openSSL can't be considered a "natural" part of this system.

gnutls is better I think.

-jason