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Date:      20 Mar 2002 09:37:56 -0500
From:      Andrew Heybey <ath@niksun.com>
To:        Chris Johnson <cjohnson@palomine.net>
Cc:        security@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Safe SSH logins from public, untrusted Windows computers
Message-ID:  <85adt3uwxn.fsf@stiegl.niksun.com>
In-Reply-To: <20020319152125.F43336@palomine.net>
References:  <20020319144538.A42969@palomine.net> <20020319131408.C324@ophiuchus.kazrak.com> <20020319152125.F43336@palomine.net>

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> On Tue, Mar 19, 2002 at 01:14:08PM -0700, Brad Jones wrote:
> > On Tue, Mar 19, 2002 at 02:45:38PM -0500, Chris Johnson wrote:
> > > I spend a lot of time in hotels, and most of them have Internet centers with
> > > Windows computers for the use of hotel guests. It's easy enough to download a
> > > copy of PuTTY and hide it in the Windows directory so that I can make SSH
> > > logins to my various remote servers.
> > 
> > S/Key.  It's built-in to FreeBSD, doesn't require any special hardware (just
> > a bit of planning ahead), and lets you avoid reusable passwords.
> > 
> > Set it up for your account, and set up 'sudo' so you can get to a root shell
> > without typing a reusable password.  Then print up 20-30 responses (or
> > however many you think you'll need) and go...you enter the one-time password
> > at the appropriate SSH prompt, and a keystroke sniffer never gets any useful
> > information.  (Sure, they got phrase #94...but that one's been used, and
> > won't work anymore.)
> > 
> > Recommended man pages: 'keyinit' will get you started, 'key' lets you
> > create a file of keys that you can print and take with you.  (If you have
> > a palmtop, most of them have key-generation programs you can use instead.)
> > 'skey' gives an overview.
> 
> Thanks very much for this; it seems to be just the ticket. I didn't know
> anything about S/Key, other than it's the thing I recently turned off in my
> sshd_config file because sshd was prompting me for things to which I didn't
> know the answer.

I had thought about doing this (setting up ssh access with s/key, that
is), using one of the java applets (mindterm, or maybe
http://www.mud.de/se/jta/).  This eliminates having to install putty
on whatever computer you are using: it just requires a java-capable
browser.  Put the applet on a web server on my computer, then run it
from where ever I am.  Has anyone had any success (or problems) with
any of the available ssh applets?

The only problem is until 4.5 I don't think you can allow s/key while
prohibiting regular passwords.

Are there any security pitfalls to doing this?  You are susceptible to
man-in-the-middle attacks but that is pretty much a given if you do
not have the host's public key with you...

andrew

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