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fingerprint art

mbays@sdf.org <mbays (a) sdf.org>

I'd like to suggest that, to supplement TOFU, we copy OpenSSH's trick of 
displaying a fingerprint as ASCII art. I just implemented this in my 
client diohsc; here's an example:

 ```
> g gemini.circumlunar.space
>>> gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space
Certificate chain: DST Root CA X3 >>> Let's Encrypt Authority X3 >>> 
gemini.circumlunar.space
    +-----[X509]------+           +-----[X509]------+
    |   ..     .      |           |  ... .          |
    |o .  .   . .     |           |   . o .         |
    |+o  . o   o      |           |    o o          |
    |+E   = . =       |           |   . . o         |
    | .  + + ^ .      |           |  . . o ^        |
    |   . + * o       |    >>>    |   + + E         |
    |    . o .        |           |  . @ .          |
    |       .         |           |.o + *           |
    |                 |           |B+..o            |
    +----[SHA256]-----+           +----[SHA256]-----+
Let's Encrypt Authority X     gemini.circumlunar.space
    Expires 2021-03-17            Expires 2020-08-01
25847d668eb4f04fdd40b12b6b0740c567da7d024308eb6c2c96fe41d9de218d
>>> 2bba43d5886f92f4e3f1d0fc1d66d647c2b890965e8088f09d0345649bb5bd25
No previous certificate seen for this host -- trusting provided certificate!
[press a key]
 ```

The idea is that these pictures are much easier for humans to recognise 
than long hex strings. So even if you don't have the fingerprint you're 
expecting saved to disk, you might be familiar enough with its picture 
that you can recognise if it's changed.

This is using the "drunken bishop" algorithm used by OpenSSH; it's 
pretty straightforward, and described nicely here:
http://www.dirk-loss.de/sshvis/drunken_bishop.pdf
(I'm using this nice haskell implementation:
https://hackage.haskell.org/package/drunken-bishop )

I think it might be nice if we had a cross-client convention to use 
these fingerprint pictures.

Link to individual message.

mbays@sdf.org <mbays (a) sdf.org>

The pictures were wrong in my original post, sorry, I was accidentally 
rehashing the hash; in case anyone wants to use them to test their own 
implementation, I believe the correct pictures should be:

 ```
   +-----[X509]------+         +-----[X509]------+
   |      ..+ooO++   |         |  .*+*o.   .     |
   |       .++Bo+ +  |         |  ..B.. . o . .. |
   |      . oO o.+ o |         |     o . E . ....|
   |       *=.= o o .|         |    ..o + o .o o.|
   |      *.^*E... . |         |    o.oo^..o+.o  |
   |     . +.Boo .   |   >>>   |   . = o.+....   |
   |        o . .    |         |    + * . +      |
   |         o       |         |     B + . .     |
   |        .        |         |    ..=..        |
   +----[SHA256]-----+         +----[SHA256]-----+
Let's Encrypt Authority     gemini.circumlunar.spac
   Expires 2021-03-17          Expires 2020-08-01
 ```

Link to individual message.

Petite Abeille <petite.abeille (a) gmail.com>



> On Jun 20, 2020, at 13:59, mbays at sdf.org wrote:
> 
> This is using the "drunken bishop" algorithm used by OpenSSH; it's 
pretty straightforward, and described nicely here:
> http://www.dirk-loss.de/sshvis/drunken_bishop.pdf

Cool.

Further reading related to this technic:

Hash Visualization? a New Technique to improve Real?-World Security
http://users.ece.cmu.edu/~adrian/projects/validation/validation.pdf

Link to individual message.

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