143 lines
9.7 KiB
HTML
143 lines
9.7 KiB
HTML
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<a href="../index.html" class="title">Inferencium</a><br>
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<div><a href="../about.html">About</a></div>
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<h1>Blog - #2</h1>
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<h2>Untrusted: The Issue with Decentralisation</h2>
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<p class="update_date">Posted: 2022-06-30 (UTC+00:00)</p>
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<p class="update_date">Updated: 2022-10-29 (UTC+00:00)</p>
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<!-- Table of contents -->
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<section id="toc">
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<h2 id="toc"><a href="#toc">Table of Contents<a/></h2>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#introduction">Introduction</a></li>
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<li><a href="#examples">Examples</a></li>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#examples-messaging">Messaging</a></li>
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</ul>
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<li><a href="#solution">Solution</a></li>
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<li><a href="#conclusion">Conclusion</a></li>
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</ul>
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</section>
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<section id="introduction">
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<h2 id="introduction"><a href="#introduction">Introduction</a></h2>
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<p>A recent trend is seeing people move towards decentralised services and platforms. While this is
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reasonable and I can understand why they are doing such a thing, they are seemingly doing it without
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thinking about the possible consequences of doing so. The issue with decentralisation is trust;
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there is no way to pin a key to a specific person, to ensure that you are communicating with the
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same person you are supposed to be communicating with. In this article, I will discuss some of the
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security issues with the decentralised model.</p>
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</section>
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<section id="examples">
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<h2 id="examples"><a href="#examples">Examples</a></h2>
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<section id="examples-messaging">
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<h3 id="examples-messaging"><a href="#examples-messaging">Messaging</a></h3>
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<p>When it comes to messaging your contacts on a centralised platform, such as Twitter or Facebook,
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the keys are pinned to that user account, using the user's password as the method of identification.
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This approach makes it impossible to log in as a specific user without their password, should it be
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strong enough to not be guessed, whether via personal guessing or exhaustive search. The trust in
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this centralised model is the high security these platforms have. It is extremely unlikely that
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anyone other than a government would be able to access the accounts stored on such platforms'
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servers, which makes the physical security trusted. As for remote security, should a user's password
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be compromised, it can typically be reset if the user can prove they are the owner of the account
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via some form of identification; this is where the trust issue of decentralisation occurs.</p>
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<p>In the decentralised model, keys are kept on the users' devices, in their possession. While this
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soveriegnty is welcomed, it introduces a critical flaw in the security of communicating with anyone
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via a decentralised platform; should a user's device be lost, stolen, or otherwise compromised,
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there is no way to know it happened and what the new keys really are, and if the same user generated
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those keys. There is no centralised point where anyone can go to check if the compromised user has
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updated their keys, which means there must already have been at least one other secure channel in
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place before the compromise occurred. Even if there was, the security of endpoint devices,
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especially typical users, is much lower than a well protected corporation's servers, making even
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those secure channels questionable to trust. Should all secure channels be compromised, there is
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literally no way to know if the person you are communicating with is the real person or an imposter;
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there is no root of trust. This point is fatal; game over. The only way to establish trust again
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would be to physically meet and exchange keys.</p>
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</section>
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</section>
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<section id="solution">
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<h2 id="solution"><a href="#solution">Solution</a></h2>
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<p>I'll cut to the chase; there isn't a definitive solution. The best way to handle this situation
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is to design your threat model and think about your reasoning for avoiding centralised platforms. Is
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it lack of trust of a specific company? Is it the possibility of centralised platforms going
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offline? Only by thinking logically and tactically can you solve both the issue of centralisation
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and decentralisation. Often, one size fits all is never the correct approach, nor does it typically
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work.</p>
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<p>In order to avoid the issue of loss of trust due to lack of root of trust, all users' keys must
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be stored in a centralised location where all contacts are able to go to in case of compromise or to
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periodically check the state of keys and to see if they have changed. This centralised location
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requires some sort of identification to ensure that the user changing their keys is really the same
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person who initially signed up for the platform, using a trust-on-first-use (TOFU) model, which
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isn't much different than what today's centralised platforms are already doing; the only difference
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is who is controlling the location; trust is still present and required.</p>
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<p>In order to have a root of trust, I have posted my keys to my website, which is protected by
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multiple layers of security:<br>
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<br>
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<ol>
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<li>I have provided identification to my domain name registrar, to ensure I can access the website I
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rightfully own, should it be compromised, by providing identification to the domain name
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registrar.</li>
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<li>I have provided identification to my virtual private server host, to ensure I can access the
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virtual private servers I rightfully rent, should they be compromised, by providing identification
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to the virtual private server host.</li>
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<li>I have pinned my website to a globally trusted certificate authority, Let's Encrypt, which is a
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trusted party to manage TLS certificates and ensure ownership of the domain when connecting to
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it.</li>
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<li>I have enabled DNSSEC on my domain, so it is extremely difficult to spoof my domain to make you
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believe you're connecting to it when you're actually connecting to someone else's.</li>
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</ol></p>
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<p>While not the most secure implementation of a root of trust, it is the most secure implementation
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currently available to me. While the domain name registrar or virtual private server host could
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tamper with my domain and data, they are the most trustworthy parties available. In its current
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form, decentralisation would make this impossible to implement in any form.</p>
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</section>
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<section id="conclusion">
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<h2 id="conclusion"><a href="#conclusion">Conclusion</a></h2>
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<p>Do not demand anonymity; demand privacy and control of your own data. Complete anonymity makes it
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impossible to have a root of trust, and is typically never necessary. It is possible for someone
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else to hold your keys, without them taking control of them and dictating what you can and cannot do
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(Twitter's misinformation policy comes to mind). If a platform is not listening to your or other
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people's concerns about how it is being run, show those platforms that you will not stand for it,
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and move to a different one. This may not be ideal, but it's not different to moving from one
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decentralised platform to another. Centralisation is not what is evil, the people in control of the
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platforms are what is potentially evil. Carefully, logically, and tactically, choose who to trust.
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Decentralisation doesn't do much for trust when you must still trust the operator of the
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decentralised platform, and are still subject to the possibly draconian policies of that
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decentralised platform. If government is what you are trying to avoid, there is no denying it is
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feasibly impossible to avoid it; a government could always take down the decentralised platform,
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forcing you to move to another, and they could also take down the centralised key storage site
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mentioned earlier in this article. A government is not something you can so easily avoid.
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Decentralisation does not solve the government issue. In order to live a happy, fun, and fulfilled
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life, while protecting yourself against logical threats, there are only two words you must live by:
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Threat model.</p>
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</section>
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</body>
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