News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:LibreSSL: FIPS mode is not coming back by protomyth on Wednesday April 23, 2014 @01:08PM (#7635332)
I'm sure Red Hat has the money to pay someone to implement FIPS for their port.
Re:LibreSSL: FIPS mode is not coming back by mburns on Wednesday April 23, 2014 @03:29PM (#7636340)
I'm sure they do, too. It isn't that simple.
Re:LibreSSL: FIPS mode is not coming back by protomyth on Wednesday April 23, 2014 @03:45PM (#7636435)
What isn't simple about Red Hat paying a third-party to write some software and get it certified? Other companies are doing it for themselves, surely Red Hat can find someone qualified.
Re:LibreSSL: FIPS mode is not coming back by mburns on Wednesday April 23, 2014 @04:00PM (#7636532)
Just "write some software and get it certified"? Sounds so simple, why doesn't everyone do it?

Because it isn't just getting a body of code certified once.

Someone has to maintain that specific code and either upstream or backport important changes which require a re-certification, neither of which LibreSSL is interested in helping with.

Re:LibreSSL: FIPS mode is not coming back by danudey on Wednesday April 23, 2014 @05:01PM (#7636870)
Once LibreSSL has reached a point of minimal disruptive change, FIPS support could be re-implemented as a series of third-party patches, which could then be certified as needed.

For example, create a fipssl project which is patches to a specific version of LibreSSL; take the result (LibreSSL v1.x + fipssl v1.2 = libfipssl v1.2) and then get that certified. Companies/contractors which need FIPS certification then use libfipssl v1.2.

The fipssl maintainers then just have to track LibreSSL changes until their next release, which (for a series of small, maintainable patches) shouldn't be too difficult. The grsecurity project has been doing the same thing with the Linux kernel for years.

Re:LibreSSL: FIPS mode is not coming back by protomyth on Wednesday April 23, 2014 @05:03PM (#7636881)
"Sounds so simple, why doesn't everyone do it?"

Well, need & money, both of which Red Hat has. I am unclear how a company that maintains an enterprise distribution and writes a lot of code cannot find the folks needed to do FIPS if it is that important for their government contracts.