Hart Montgomery: hey Ryan how's it going.
Aruna S M: Good audio.
Aruna S M: Last conversation.
Hart Montgomery: So.
Aruna S M: i'll stop sharing.
Hart Montgomery: You can share a few other side.
Aruna S M: A little update this and then share the screen.
Hart Montgomery: that's also I think it's indicative of an issue with the calendar.
Hart Montgomery: Where like it's very hard to pull a single meeting from the calendar.
Hart Montgomery: So.
Hart Montgomery: I think.
Hart Montgomery: that's something we also need to figure out.
Hart Montgomery: Are you there.
Hart Montgomery: It looks like you lost your sound.
Aruna S M: hello, can you hear now.
mm hmm.
Aruna S M: oops sorry I did not realize that so he did I got cut off.
Hart Montgomery: I don't know.
Aruna S M: Okay, so I was saying that the way I lived the The thing that went well in previous two weeks is the document that you started putting out and over there you discussed.
Aruna S M: three broad categories that we should focus on starting from infrastructure security and then you've got two more categories right.
Aruna S M: The way I see security is that I see, we need to address horizontal.
Aruna S M: Today, if I divide, if I were to divide in broad Category I would divide it into two two ways that something that we need to really across every segment so that's where i'm calling it as horizontal.
Aruna S M: And the vertical once on are the ones that we deal with within each of those segments, how far should we define.
Aruna S M: It could be process or it could be software that is developed how far should be gone defined.
So.
Hart Montgomery: Okay, so are you defining so one of the things that sort of threw me off with what you were saying is you mentioned a lot of mitigation right and the goal here is to define threats right, at least initially.
Hart Montgomery: So we want to consider like you know.
Hart Montgomery: What could an adversary do and what are the security properties, we want more than like what solutions, give us security right.
Hart Montgomery: Does that make sense.
Aruna S M: Sure, I think I see what you're saying, but.
Aruna S M: How would that relate to.
Hart Montgomery: To.
Aruna S M: To to this way of thinking security.
Hart Montgomery: Which way of thinking.
Aruna S M: Okay, so if you're referring to this right, probably, I was just giving an example of what could be that we may be thinking of like.
Hart Montgomery: I mean, and I guess like I see why you want to you may want to think of things is you know.
Hart Montgomery: Horizontal and verticals right, but we need to define the layers and what what each layer is and what properties of security, we wanted every layer right before we.
Hart Montgomery: Before we go into the.
Hart Montgomery: You know what did these layers have in common right.
Hart Montgomery: Does that make sense.
Hart Montgomery: do this again.
Aruna S M: Sorry, I don't know what's happening, to my mind.
Hart Montgomery: that's okay.
Aruna S M: So you're right I agree to what you're saying in this document.
Aruna S M: It just fear that we could be missing out on something.
Hart Montgomery: What are we missing out on this is like my.
Hart Montgomery: You know, we were we can always miss out on something but.
Hart Montgomery: Then our model isn't very good right.
Hart Montgomery: Okay, does that make sense, I mean the goal is to try to pick a model where we don't miss anything right, and if we think about defining a model.
Hart Montgomery: we're going to be much less likely to miss something, then, if we just like try to throw a bunch of ad hoc security solutions that are problem right.
Hart Montgomery: make sense.
Aruna S M: She.
Hart Montgomery: MIC in ardo are you all.
Hart Montgomery: You all see that document.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): Know hi so I was going to interject to ask a little bit of context because, and I missed the call last week, so I wasn't completely sure I don't have a I heard you refer to some text so if we could get that that would help.
Hart Montgomery: So if you go to the wiki.
Mic Bowman: Can you post, the link in the chat.
Mic Bowman: You have it easily.
Hart Montgomery: And I can say why don't I I have.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): that's it did it.
Hart Montgomery: Perfect yeah.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): Did the PDF for what it's worth what I heard you know, I think it made sense to me and I don't know why I ruin sounded his intent and I love is because the connection is well.
Because.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): But but.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): He heard our and say oh i'm just not sure we're into not me something and what i'm hearing is you're saying before we get to the solution we have to first define the context of the.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): You know where we start from which to me that doesn't I mean what i'm trying to say is that I think our own is thinking about the end and I agree with you, you should start with.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): The assumptions and the properties, you want to have and it doesn't mean you're not going to get to where our Rooney his writings.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): is just that it's a next step right yep.
Hart Montgomery: or no what's your email it's not auto completing for me, for some reason.
Hart Montgomery: Is it little horse at IBM.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): US that idea and.
Hart Montgomery: i'll just email you guys a PDF copy of this paper.
Hart Montgomery: yeah you're you're exactly that's exactly what.
Hart Montgomery: I sort of had in mind is, we want to.
Hart Montgomery: make him also emailing you.
Mic Bowman: find things.
Hart Montgomery: You know, we want to get to we want to get to discussing medications, but we need to make sure we're we're talking about the right medications right.
Hart Montgomery: And we want to you know.
Mic Bowman: So.
Hart Montgomery: Go ahead.
Mic Bowman: The way I was and i'm just jumping in based on conversations you and I have had in the past, there needs to be a standard for what you expect the system to be able to do before you can even talk about how you would mitigate.
Mic Bowman: Differences between what the current system behaves i'm what your ideal objective is.
Absolutely.
Mic Bowman: You need a target to know what you're shooting at.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): Though I make sense.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): that's a good.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): way, to put it.
yeah.
Hart Montgomery: And that's what like that's, the first thing I would like this group to do is define essentially this target like what what should security look like for a.
Hart Montgomery: An open development ecosystem.
Hart Montgomery: And then, once we get that we can talk about things we want to do to.
Hart Montgomery: To achieve that target.
Hart Montgomery: So, if you look at that paper which you all, should have by now.
Hart Montgomery: I took a first cut at this and I said well let's break up security into three categories, you may, if you have better suggestions i'm totally open, this is not like.
Hart Montgomery: You know this is me just writing stuff, this is not some like you know rigorous set in stone Convention so if you have some better way i'd love to hear it.
Hart Montgomery: But, as you can see, I divided things up into infrastructure security architectural security and implementation security.
Hart Montgomery: Do you think those are reasonable divisions, or is there a better way to do this.
Aruna S M: To make money going by your guard understanding or what you just suggested right, so how would you define it so you said, even before we go to problem statement, we need to define what you mean what is the system that we're trying to how do we define the system that or whatever.
Aruna S M: How do we define that right so, for instance, in this case we are talking about are we are considering blockchain technology has type system that we need security that we need to secure.
Hart Montgomery: Well, I think it's even broader right it's the.
Mic Bowman: Go ahead MIC sorry go ahead, no, I was gonna go the other direction, with that, but go ahead.
Hart Montgomery: Oh, I was just gonna say we're thinking about the whole ecosystem right.
Hart Montgomery: Not just a blockchain.
Hart Montgomery: We need to handle all of the like develop you know all of the issues that can go bad in development right, you know what like NPs package spoofing right is.
Hart Montgomery: Something that is unfortunately become very common.
Hart Montgomery: That should clearly be something we need to consider right.
Hart Montgomery: But it's not necessarily a blockchain problem right.
Mic Bowman: So.
Mic Bowman: Hard how.
Mic Bowman: We talked a little bit about this, two weeks ago, I had you.
Mic Bowman: We need to break this down into smaller pieces.
Hart Montgomery: that's what I yeah.
Mic Bowman: right that I mean they're they're a big set of problems they need to be broken down into smaller pieces, there are pieces that have to do with.
Mic Bowman: resilient build processes, there are pieces that have to do with.
Mic Bowman: Clear representation and binding of metadata and verification data to whatever the software artifacts are um, how do you know that what you've got is what was actually built that questions.
Mic Bowman: I think they're also and maybe this is where Reno was going with the questions there's also a set of.
Mic Bowman: kind of expectations for the behavior and security and management of the running system that come into play here as well.
Mic Bowman: So.
Mic Bowman: When when you're when you're thinking about this problem are you thinking about the integrity of the binary that someone runs are you thinking about.
Mic Bowman: kind of the way you build a running system that has certain guarantees and then check now guarantees as a way too strong a word right, but certain properties that you would like to.
Hart Montgomery: Both I think this, at least if I interpreted correctly, the second what encompasses the first one right.
Mic Bowman: You can't It is certainly true that you can't have the second one without having the first, but the approaches that I reduced to deliver the first may not be.
Mic Bowman: are interesting in and of themselves and maybe a much more solvable problem by hyper ledger.
Hart Montgomery: yeah yes.
Mic Bowman: So, to build a running system that that has certain security properties that you can can identify may require interfaces for audit button and verification and.
Mic Bowman: You know any number of components services are in there, the build process for building an artifact there, at least, are a collection of fairly consistent tools for doing that.
Hart Montgomery: yeah I think the the build process is.
Hart Montgomery: Probably the easier thing to address at this point, but I mean it's still we still need to address it like.
Hart Montgomery: there's still a number of issues that that we currently have with this.
Hart Montgomery: So.
Hart Montgomery: We are like we aren't perfectly following best practices, right now, even for these relatively simple builds practices.
Mic Bowman: Correct This is absolutely true.
Hart Montgomery: Like I agree with you that that it's easier.
Hart Montgomery: But.
Hart Montgomery: we're still.
Hart Montgomery: we're still not necessarily perfect on it.
Hart Montgomery: Does that so I mean, I have tried to split this up.
Hart Montgomery: Like informally when when we're thinking about a system from end to end right and maybe I should have written this up better.
Hart Montgomery: We.
Hart Montgomery: We want to make sure that the system is designed correctly right.
Hart Montgomery: That it doesn't have any obvious design flaws that are going to cause security issues.
Hart Montgomery: You want to make sure it's implemented correctly right.
Hart Montgomery: Such that the implementation meets the abstract model.
Hart Montgomery: And then we want to make sure it's built and delivered correctly right.
Hart Montgomery: there's no way that.
Hart Montgomery: You know.
Hart Montgomery: adversaries can disrupt the delivery or the build process.
Hart Montgomery: So that's how I kind of segment to that.
Hart Montgomery: And I think those are sort of.
Hart Montgomery: Three like somewhat different security problems.
Hart Montgomery: With with different ways to address them.
Hart Montgomery: Do you think that you think that's a reasonable division.
Mic Bowman: or no, what do you think.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): Did you ask a week.
Mic Bowman: No, I was asking a row now I.
Aruna S M: mean.
Mic Bowman: I mean our our know I always care about what you think but.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): I appreciate that but.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): But I just.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): I didn't really it was me, but since there was a sinus of like maybe i've recently.
Hart Montgomery: So I thought it might be.
Mic Bowman: Oscar and it just it just yet.
Mic Bowman: I.
Mic Bowman: I have the advantage that i'm working on a lab and and most of the stuff that I do does not transfer out as suffer artifacts most of what I do transfers out as kind of knowledge and learnings that somebody else picks up and turns into a product.
Mic Bowman: That being said, I am also deeply interested in how to build more secure and more interesting more reliable software artifacts and how we how we transition, and so, which is why I wanted to participate in this group so i'm curious from those who are actually building these things.
Mic Bowman: If this.
Mic Bowman: Classification structure makes sense ruina did this does this make sense to you.
Aruna S M: is right So for me, whatever hard as I can see how, how is putting out in terms of obvious categorizing areas that we should tackle on.
Aruna S M: And if you personally asked me I generally dealt with system programming for a while the sense I go deep into some of the aspects, for instance, if you if you pick up and and one of the thing that lets say had brought up was.
Aruna S M: Whether we have designed.
Aruna S M: The system properly right, so, if I can go deep into that and say hey everything system design, probably, we should create multiple layers or multiple components and we should tackle each of this.
Aruna S M: uniquely, for instance, there is, and there is something related to networking, that we need to handle differently, compared to compute that we need to handle differently.
Aruna S M: And we'll have a store some data in each area I pick up and then.
Aruna S M: Put a boundary and then see how to tackle or address those issues, but I see what heartsease type is holistically looking into complete end to end delivery of software or whatever we deliver as a package he's looking into security in all of this, so I agree to his product categorization.
Aruna S M: So, probably what I was initially speaking, was it could have been like skewed in one of these pockets like hot created.
Hart Montgomery: Hello yeah no I.
Hart Montgomery: just listening.
Aruna S M: That so sorry I think that's how my interpretation was, I think you clarified it with this larger buckets right.
Hart Montgomery: yeah I mean we just want, we want to have a comprehensive.
Hart Montgomery: Security definition right what.
Hart Montgomery: What are we trying to defend or what's reasonable for us to defend against right.
Hart Montgomery: And how would.
Hart Montgomery: How would either you know.
Hart Montgomery: How would an adversary attack or how would you know critical security bugs propagate through our system right.
Hart Montgomery: This does anyone else have any comments.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): So I am one, which is you know I think we need to clearly differentiate between what's you know applicable to general software development, you know which is being addressed in many different organizations now, including open ssl.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): which has to do with you know, just like the production of software artifacts make just talked about right.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): Right and things that are specific to blockchain I mean, in my case, you know from my point of view.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): What i'm interested in us discussing here is, you know what can we do from an iPad your point of view, so that you know I mean this dollar within the discussion to see is you know I can be adopt.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): Ensure that you know the hyper ledger projects in general and best practices to you know.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): Ensure that they are doing as best as they can to produce a secure the software and then there is beyond that okay.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): we're dealing with blockchain, which is quite a specific type of technology, which of course is typically used in.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): You know clearly sensitive applications, and I think we could also look into that aspect that other organizations like open SF is not going to look into a specific objection, obviously.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): So maybe we can build on what is being done at the generic level, if you will, and discuss what could be specific, that we could do, that is, you know apply it to applicable to blockchain in particular.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): But I don't think we should you know fall into the trap of trying to of reinventing the whole stack, if you will, because then I think we are just you know where we're seeing a bit of time because there's a lot of stuff we can leverage and we should live.
Hart Montgomery: Absolutely, I mean we're not trying to reinvent the.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): i'm not saying you obviously I.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): I trust you're wise enough not to do that, but I think in in our we talked about this, we need to have to add, you know the clear on this, is the goal, and we need to find where that boundary is in the in the problem statement we consider.
sure.
Hart Montgomery: The.
Hart Montgomery: You know, and I guess my my main comment to, that is, there are a lot of you are correct, there are a lot of things that are common to any sort of project right.
Hart Montgomery: or any sort of software development things that aren't specific the blockchain, but we still need to make sure we're following those best practices and, in some cases, the art right.
Hart Montgomery: So my rationale for bringing these up is that you know they are known and they're not super novel, but we still need to make sure people are doing them right.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): Absolutely.
Hart Montgomery: So, so I don't expect that this will like consume a lot of time or thought, but we still need to say like hey you know you have to do.
Hart Montgomery: The most basic things right yeah.
Hart Montgomery: And the the specific to blockchain stuff, is why I really focused on sort of architectural security right.
Hart Montgomery: Because this is a much bigger issue in blockchain where you have a lot of critical code that has to be designed well right.
Hart Montgomery: Rather than something I don't know what you can think of some less security, you know if.
Hart Montgomery: If you're doing like you know.
Hart Montgomery: I don't know like a viewer or something right.
Hart Montgomery: You know, there are a lot of, I guess, there are a lot of architectural issues in blockchains and and things like consensus algorithms need to be perfect right.
Hart Montgomery: And this is not something that you're going to see in in many non cryptographic applications right.
Hart Montgomery: So one of the point of emphasis on this is.
Hart Montgomery: And what I think this will lead to is that we need to.
Hart Montgomery: We need to figure out how we want to handle.
Hart Montgomery: Like critical cryptographic or consensus code right.
Hart Montgomery: Like we want this to have more eyes on it then regular code probably right and Ideally, we would have some kind of review system for tracking it.
Hart Montgomery: Did that make sense.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): Yes.
Hart Montgomery: But you know the consensus code is just sort of one obvious area right there may be other critical architectural things.
Hart Montgomery: that we think are also you know, important.
Hart Montgomery: So.
Hart Montgomery: To us i'm rambling a little bit here but.
Hart Montgomery: yeah I agree with you.
Hart Montgomery: That we do want to so i'll just say one more sentence and then shut up, I agree with you that we do want to do we do want to mostly focus on blockchain specific stuff, but we have to make sure that the general stuff is in order to and our projects aren't always doing that.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): I totally agree, and this is, you know you may remember when I brought it up, but the TC I was actually primarily interested in that right.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): To say Okay, at least, you know the rest of the world is moving on trying to you know adopt define and best practices, we ought to keep up and and and do that.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): So I totally agree, I mean I you know my intent was not to say oh don't worry, but this is being done no, on the contrary, I, this is, you know we at least need to do that much.
Aruna S M: Not to.
Hart Montgomery: Go ahead.
Aruna S M: No, I was about to compliment or i'd add more toward are not speaking I.
Aruna S M: So one of the area and through which we can address this concern and also go, I mean cover what hardware saying is.
Aruna S M: Broadly, we do study and come up with best practices that are out there, define through multiple forms it could be to open ssl or it could be through some other learnings that we have for X, for instance I.
Aruna S M: read through this Microsoft sql process, which covers some of it, some of the aspects that heart was trying to address.
Aruna S M: So we could document all the document in essence read through them and then combine take best practices from each of them.
Aruna S M: and see what each of them makes sense for us and that could be a way of addressing the common best practices related concerns, and then we can switch completely to blockchain related topics.
Hart Montgomery: yeah so so I really like that approach, and I would suggest that, instead of just focusing on best practices we focus on also the threats, they are trying to mitigate with those best practices right.
Hart Montgomery: One thing that I think it's important it's like it's it's important to think in terms of the threats like the best practices are a solution, rather than a problem right.
Aruna S M: Right.
Hart Montgomery: And traditionally in this area, you think in terms of the problems.
Hart Montgomery: So if we're going through all the open ssf stuff we can think of, like you know they say X, this is solving like this problem, do we have this problem right.
Hart Montgomery: And then, if this private, we do have this problem then does their solution work right because well, I mean I guess openness itself is a is a bad example.
Hart Montgomery: But there are some best practices that might solve a problem that we might have that we might need a different solution than what they're proposing right.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): Yes.
Aruna S M: How do we know what problems we have.
Hart Montgomery: We have to think about it right that's what that's what we're here to solve like what are the issues we, what are the likely issues, we could have in security right, what are the threats.
Kamlesh Nagware: I haven't quite something.
Hart Montgomery: Sure go ahead.
Kamlesh Nagware: yeah so one is about the scope of the security with a best practice with so many states or procedures.
Kamlesh Nagware: And when it's kind of open source code base code like level therapy or maybe.
Kamlesh Nagware: Another another place absolutely who is implementing that.
Kamlesh Nagware: That Open Source projects in their application so in the scope, I think we should also cover the how someone can implement.
Kamlesh Nagware: This project in a secure way, I think the two places one is open source person who are building a writing that codes and other who are using that code and what were the best practices to.
Kamlesh Nagware: legacy code ugly because, because the end user, maybe they are not aware or not that much worry about the what the.
Kamlesh Nagware: purpose was base coat provide security or not the only awesome more care about water system they are building on top of that particular Open Source blockchain for how they can design and build a secure system, so I didn't do this two places also need to be covered.
yeah.
Hart Montgomery: that's a great point and I actually included in the document under architectural security, one thing I have seen that is sort of a big problem.
Hart Montgomery: Is a lack of good guarantees about what systems provide and, in my experience, this shows up all the time in things like privacy and confidentiality, where people say a system has privacy, but they don't define what privacy is and then people use the system in a way, with sort of a different.
Hart Montgomery: thought of what privacy is and they end up getting essentially no privacy.
Hart Montgomery: So it's I totally agree with you that we need to formalize explicit guarantees of systems.
Hart Montgomery: so that users can say, well, if I use this system in this way with these guarantees, I will have security right.
Kamlesh Nagware: And I.
Hart Montgomery: And that's that's exactly what this whole exercise is about you know I really like that approach it's how you.
Hart Montgomery: that's how you it is how you formally defined security is in that very way right.
Hart Montgomery: So so yeah that that's that's The goal of this right is that we can give you know, like we should be able to give users systems with explicit guarantees.
yeah.
Hart Montgomery: So i'm totally in agreement did that make sense to everybody else.
Mic Bowman: Yes.
Kamlesh Nagware: So that's why I bring this point of US currently working with one of the my customer you know and there isn't I protect protect human and.
Kamlesh Nagware: In there is physical dimension, about the security planning and they even they don't even like the blue like whatever the code, they are using is a secure is a security guarantee.
Kamlesh Nagware: But what are the different ways, or some kind of popular best practices to use that particular open source code.
Kamlesh Nagware: And it could be secure and they're like supposed figure in terms of like, for example, that I can do some kind of like.
Kamlesh Nagware: His stories were kind of kind of malfunctioning of keys application security validation in an authentication of the State ledger consensus.
Kamlesh Nagware: or irritability all this parameters how someone is using it in the application, how they how it could be the best security procedures also need to be considered when we say that secure system.
Hart Montgomery: yeah yep, we have to define systems right and and we don't necessarily do that.
Hart Montgomery: So.
Hart Montgomery: This is a, this is a security issue and it's a document it's it's you know related to documentation.
Hart Montgomery: But yeah I totally agree.
Hart Montgomery: Does anyone else have more more comments on this.
Peter Somogyvari: I was kind of late, so I didn't get in the discussion, the same time, but what I heard so far, I can definitely get behind.
Peter Somogyvari: My two daughters that are a question.
Peter Somogyvari: i'm here because i'm just looking for opportunities to help out but i'm not getting 100% sure what that's going to be i'm just trying to compete wherever I can but security is not my main field, so my options are a little more limited.
Hart Montgomery: you're a Saint Peter, as always.
Hart Montgomery: I sent you the document.
Hart Montgomery: And I don't think we have a we don't have a route we've been sending to the Ts email list so I added some stuff to the wiki with the document with a.
Hart Montgomery: With a github repo that has the document you can PR it i'm happy to give everyone in this meeting at least full permission to the repo, if you like, so just ask.
Hart Montgomery: And you can throw your own stuff in there.
Hart Montgomery: But, eventually, I would like us to be able to write something more formal ish about security practices, because that will get taken much more seriously by people.
Hart Montgomery: And so well, we have you know.
Hart Montgomery: We have started writing a PDF rather than a wiki for that reason.
Hart Montgomery: So.
Hart Montgomery: I guess.
Hart Montgomery: we've been we've been talking about this and and I asked in the document, how should we continue to move this forward.
Hart Montgomery: we've talked about sort of like thinking about security.
Hart Montgomery: Is there something I can do to move this forward more and what would you all like fat to be.
Aruna S M: Should we start defining the problem as his site, the functional areas that we should focus on.
Hart Montgomery: yeah absolutely I think that's if everyone would participate in that that would be fantastic like if we just so so maybe what we can do is, we can think about each of these categories right, and then we can think of like threats in each category right.
Hart Montgomery: So, so that that I think would be a very productive way forward is this does this make sense to everybody.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): sounds good.
Hart Montgomery: So if we.
Hart Montgomery: So i'll try to all like push.
Hart Montgomery: First of all, how should we communicate, how should I communicate with you all.
Hart Montgomery: I don't think we have an email list.
Peter Somogyvari: They score.
Kamlesh Nagware: The score.
Okay.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): sounds reasonable.
Hart Montgomery: If everyone follows discord out as opposed to everything discord okay.
Hart Montgomery: So how about this, so I will add some I let it the document and I will say let's.
Hart Montgomery: let's all add threats right.
Hart Montgomery: and
Hart Montgomery: let's all add threats that we would consider to the in each of these areas right like what are the ways our system could fail.
Hart Montgomery: How could an adversary attack.
Hart Montgomery: What are the problem issues right.
Hart Montgomery: And once we get all of the threats, then we can basically say.
Hart Montgomery: We can try to condense the right there will be a lot of overlap and we can we can try to more concisely state them.
Hart Montgomery: Right.
Hart Montgomery: And maybe we can do that at the next meeting, where we say here are all the threats we've considered can we sort of like merge me or write me and more concise ways.
Hart Montgomery: And then we can use this to try to build a model right will say like this is this is, this is the, these are the threats we want to consider in our you know development system, and then we can start to talk about medications.
Hart Montgomery: Right, this does that seem like a reasonable approach it.
Aruna S M: sounds good, to me, and probably we can let it, I mean if somebody has I don't think so if you're comfortable with latics by any any document that you create for those it should be.
Hart Montgomery: yeah I mean, I think.
Hart Montgomery: Most people here can can do tech it if not it's it's.
Hart Montgomery: We can help in it it's pretty easy.
Peter Somogyvari: yeah I don't mind it, I may have a learning curve, but it's fine.
Hart Montgomery: If you have issues Peter i'm happy to help you.
Hart Montgomery: would be quite a quite an about face in terms of.
Hart Montgomery: yeah.
Hart Montgomery: Okay.
Hart Montgomery: Great just does anyone else.
Hart Montgomery: Have any thoughts on this or anything they want to suggest.
Peter Somogyvari: Just one more I don't know if he clarifies earlier but.
Peter Somogyvari: This could be explicit about the target audience for each document as, and this is for maintainer and contributors, or is it just for specifically security specialized people.
Peter Somogyvari: or within hyper ledger or.
Peter Somogyvari: stuff like that for for people who only have like 30 seconds to charge if they want to spend half an afternoon, reading the document.
Peter Somogyvari: They could.
Peter Somogyvari: gauge it a little quicker if somewhere somehow he expressed it explicitly that.
Peter Somogyvari: This particular documentary published is meant for this and that kind of person.
Hart Montgomery: yeah that's a good question.
Hart Montgomery: So I think we're going to want to write many documents in the long run and.
Hart Montgomery: What we have right here is is sort of.
Hart Montgomery: scratch work that we can you know we can eventually cut and paste into something else.
Hart Montgomery: I would say.
Hart Montgomery: well.
Hart Montgomery: We want to reach a couple of audiences right we we want to reach sort of our own developers right and we want to say look, this is, this is what we think about security and we need you, we need you to do your part and make sure we're achieving that's right.
Hart Montgomery: And the audience in that case, I would say is is a developer, who is security conscious, but not necessarily a security expert right.
Hart Montgomery: And that's probably the like most critical like thing, but you know we also might want to you know if we want to sell our security to other people, you know, we want to say hey.
Hart Montgomery: You know, look at all this security stuff we're doing compared to all of these other people, we have a great block chain, you know we have great security properties.
Hart Montgomery: That we want might want to write a document more oriented towards security experts right so that some company can give it to their security expert and they say like yeah these guys really know what they're doing this is, you know a good thing right.
Hart Montgomery: So.
Hart Montgomery: And then you know and then we're probably you know we may also want to do like blog posts or things, for you know.
Hart Montgomery: Things oriented more towards the media so that's going to be very.
Hart Montgomery: Technically informal right.
Hart Montgomery: So I think.
Hart Montgomery: My goal anyways is to to reach out to get something to all of these groups of people.
Hart Montgomery: But again, getting the message on security to our maintainer and our contributors, is the most important thing.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): yeah sounds good.
Peter Somogyvari: Thanks.
So.
Hart Montgomery: Does anybody else have other comments, suggestions.
Hart Montgomery: vic I can't believe you don't have a snarky comment towards me at this point.
Mic Bowman: No snarky comments for today i'm being Nice.
Hart Montgomery: he's saving your quota for next week.
Mic Bowman: Oh yeah.
Mic Bowman: Okay, so that honest answer heart is, you know that I.
Mic Bowman: You know that I agree with you, this is not the first time you and i've had this conversation.
Hart Montgomery: Well yeah I know you generally agree but it's possible that i'm like.
Hart Montgomery: You know missing something or are screwing up and in some aspect of the plan.
well.
Hart Montgomery: possibilities.
Mic Bowman: yeah well the devils in the details.
Mic Bowman: Absolutely we're talking now at such a high level that that.
Mic Bowman: It is the right high level set of objectives that we have to map it down into practical responses and and the.
Mic Bowman: mapping, is where all the interesting work that's done yep.
Hart Montgomery: That is true.
Aruna S M: And you also recommended to to think it when we think of threats think it off as a game right.
Aruna S M: You want us to think in those terms.
Hart Montgomery: You don't need Okay, ideally, when possible right.
Hart Montgomery: So.
Hart Montgomery: yeah the.
Hart Montgomery: It sort of widely considered that the best.
Hart Montgomery: The best sick security games are.
Hart Montgomery: See i'm even calling it the security game, the best security definitions are modeled as games between the challenger and an adversary.
Hart Montgomery: And I know a lot of you are familiar with the notion of a security game and a security definition.
Hart Montgomery: If you're not i'm happy to provide references.
Hart Montgomery: But the idea is a game can explicitly capture what an attacker is allowed to do right, but specifically formalizes what is in scope of an attack and what is out of scope of an attack.
Hart Montgomery: And, as I pointed out right it's very important to provide explicit system guarantees and precise security definitions do exactly that right.
Hart Montgomery: If you all have probably all read like a bfd consensus paper right.
Hart Montgomery: If you read a formal paper, it gives you very explicit guarantees on what you need in order for consensus to happen right.
Hart Montgomery: Is that does that all make sense.
Hart Montgomery: Did I disconnect here.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): No, no.
I will say.
Hart Montgomery: As everyone read the bitcoin backbone paper.
Peter Somogyvari: I have a confession to make.
DAS.
Hart Montgomery: mick is read it.
Mic Bowman: I have.
Hart Montgomery: To he wrote a follow up.
Mic Bowman: It does take a little bit of effort to get through.
Hart Montgomery: It it takes a little bit of effort, but this is like I think this is the best way how posted in here.
Hart Montgomery: This is the best way to sort of think about.
Hart Montgomery: It rather, this is the best introduction i've seen to like a light.
Hart Montgomery: A light model of like a lot of thinking about blockchain security right.
Hart Montgomery: Believe it or not, this is light.
Hart Montgomery: But.
Hart Montgomery: You know that this is more formal than what we will do in this group.
Hart Montgomery: But I think it's it's really interesting to go over.
Hart Montgomery: Because it tells people how to think about it tells you how to think about blockchain security.
Hart Montgomery: And it does that for a system that everybody already knows right you already know how bitcoin works.
Hart Montgomery: So you don't have to spend time like learning bitcoin you just have to think about the security properties of bitcoin.
Hart Montgomery: Is anybody else got over that besides MC in a room.
Kamlesh Nagware: hey maybe not not really.
Hart Montgomery: Okay, no worries yeah i'll post i'll post, all of this in the discord.
Hart Montgomery: or no Are you familiar with this.
Hart Montgomery: Okay.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): I.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): downloaded the document that was just browsing through it that's definitely you know.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): For.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): I mean I don't think i'm the right audience for this or i'll be honest.
Hart Montgomery: Probably not but you know, the point is that someone, we need to have people in hyper ledger who are capable of going over like our blockchain designs and consensus algorithms at this level, and we do like you know your whole Zurich lab does this.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): Exactly exactly um.
Hart Montgomery: But we need to like formalize this is part of the process.
Hart Montgomery: Also, I.
Hart Montgomery: Angela said he might show up but I guess he couldn't make it today.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): yeah but I agree with you.
Hart Montgomery: So, like but yeah for people that are interested in like looking at like what you needed this sort of architecture there it's this kind of thing, and this isn't even this is like the lightweight proof, if you went to heavyweight proof there's a.
Hart Montgomery: there's a much, much worse.
Hart Montgomery: there's a bitcoin security.
Hart Montgomery: You see model.
Hart Montgomery: But uh.
Hart Montgomery: Anyway, this does anyone have any any other like questions or comments.
Peter Somogyvari: Not for me i'll just try to read the paper for next meeting.
Peter Somogyvari: Okay it's the last couple of weeks have been super busy because of the upcoming cactus.
Hart Montgomery: yeah well that should be next week right.
Hart Montgomery: we're not meeting for two weeks right we're bi weekly.
Peter Somogyvari: I thought we were yeah yeah so.
Hart Montgomery: You should have some time and i'll post some stuff on discord and then, in the meantime, if you want to just like post let's.
Hart Montgomery: let's think about threats like what are the.
Hart Montgomery: What are the threats in each of these categories and what can we do to.
Hart Montgomery: Well yeah just what are the.
Kamlesh Nagware: What are the threats.
Aruna S M: I think it's easy to think of a solution that.
I think.
Hart Montgomery: yeah well let's.
Aruna S M: engineers we're all come.
Aruna S M: Come to think of solutions for a problem.
Hart Montgomery: yeah this is, this is a.
Hart Montgomery: This is a core difference, so if you're a cryptographer a security.
Hart Montgomery: Professional you want to think of threats.
Hart Montgomery: So enjoy being an adversary, you can think of.
Hart Montgomery: We can have a MIC chain, how would you attack MC chain.
Mic Bowman: That would be way too easy just put me in the dunking.
Hart Montgomery: That can be outside the threat model, though.
Hart Montgomery: So yeah.
Hart Montgomery: I don't know about you, you all, but I always find it fun to think about attacking systems.
Hart Montgomery: So.
Hart Montgomery: I hope this is a fun exercise for you all.
Peter Somogyvari: Now it's.
Peter Somogyvari: A little gamification know the process, I, like the person.
Hart Montgomery: awesome.
Hart Montgomery: Is there anything else.
Aruna S M: This is sounds good, probably, we should have made midweek checkpoints this to see that we are progressing.
Hart Montgomery: yeah I mean I think if we just communicate on the discord.
Hart Montgomery: I don't know what kind of checkpoint you had in mind.
Hart Montgomery: it's a good question i'm happy to look i'm happy to talk with all of you even individually, if you want to talk about this.
Hart Montgomery: So.
Hart Montgomery: If you feel like a heart, you know I.
Hart Montgomery: You know kitty everything from Can you help me understand things too I think you're being a total idiot about this.
Hart Montgomery: All those and everything in between this welcome.
Hart Montgomery: So you all should feel free to i'll get in touch.
Aruna S M: I guess collaboration in some place ideally some snack poppers object pointing in a way that we come to know what's happening and what are the persons mean what is that other person is thinking about.
Aruna S M: Where else can I focus my attention to what.
Aruna S M: i'm thinking, where, how do we do that, how do we establish that.
Hart Montgomery: So how do we.
Hart Montgomery: yeah I mean, however, you want to collaborate inside with me.
Hart Montgomery: So why don't I go ahead and.
Hart Montgomery: i'm just gonna trust everyone in this call so i'm just going to go ahead and give you all access to that repo.
Peter Somogyvari: Thank you.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): Alright guys i've got to go look calling me to be there for it so.
Hart Montgomery: Thanks everybody I know before you leave what's your github.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): it's led HR is.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): Good.
Hart Montgomery: gotcha perfect.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): Right.
Arnaud J Le Hors (IBM): Take care.
Thank you.
Peter Somogyvari: Thank you.
Kamlesh Nagware: I sent my get.
Hart Montgomery: will be at you.
Hart Montgomery: Come listen a rude I think I know I know you did I add, you get a room.
Aruna S M: hey.
Aruna S M: Maybe you might the comic.
Hart Montgomery: i've merged your combat so I should be able to add you to that.
Hart Montgomery: All right, unless you got added.
Hart Montgomery: who's left MIC.
Hart Montgomery: Okay perfect.
Hart Montgomery: awesome.
Hart Montgomery: Thanks a lot.
I will stop the recording.