On 9/28/12, David Noel <david.i.n...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 9/28/12, Matthew Seaman <matt...@freebsd.org> wrote: >> On 28/09/2012 20:41, Ed Flecko wrote: >>> David - I'd like to, but every time I try that it prompts me for a >>> password...and I don't know what password it wants??? >> >> That would be the password to a freebsd.org account, which isn't going >> to work for most people on two counts: >> >> * freebsd.org uses SSH keys for authentication, not passwords. >> >> * even if you've got a SSH key, not being a FreeBSD committer you >> probably don't have a freebsd.org account. >> >> For anonymous access, you can use http or svn. Given that anonymous >> access is read-only, there's really not much to be gained from SSH or >> other means of encrypting the connection, either for you, or for the >> FreeBSD servers. It's anonymous, so you don't care about >> authentication. FreeBSD sources are publicly available, so you don't >> care about anyone eavesdropping on the traffic. About the only thing >> you're still exposed to is a man-in-the-middle attack, where someone >> could pose as a FreeBSD server and feed you a trojanned set of sources >> -- but then, you'ld still be exposed in exactly the same way even using >> svn+ssh. In practice, attacks of this type are very (pretty much >> vanishingly) rare. If they do concern you, then use portsnap(8) / >> freebsd-update(8) which has specific cryptographic protection against >> such things. The portsnap and freebsd-update build systems also have >> special access to the master FreeBSD repositories to minimize the >> chances that they themselves could be fed trojanned sources. >> >> Cheers, >> >> Matthew >> >> -- >> Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. >> PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey > > > MITM-based attacks--and subsequent corrupted sources--are my concern. > It was my understanding that anonymous svn+ssh would prevent this > assuming the host key was properly verified against > http://www.freebsd.org/internal/ssh-keys.asc. > > Recently I've installed from an iso and then manually updated with > pgp-signed security patches. It would certainly be nice to have some > secure source update mechanism though. >
Apologies for the spam and the hastily written closing paragraph. I was hoping to end with a heartwarming anecdote that would leave the reader with no choice but to agree that anonymous ssh+svn access would benefit us all. AnonCVS is still of course an option, but with its eventual retirement the addition of an anonymous svn+ssh account would seem fitting, or at least consistent. -David _______________________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
