[HN Gopher] I faked tons of Covid passes - "Weak Key Cryptograph...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       I faked tons of Covid passes - "Weak Key Cryptography in real
       world"
        
       Author : jtaft
       Score  : 135 points
       Date   : 2021-11-26 17:32 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (ctrsec.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (ctrsec.io)
        
       | acqbu wrote:
       | Well done, great job!
        
       | muterad_murilax wrote:
       | Anyone knows if this is applicable to Covid passes used in the
       | European Union as well?
        
         | est31 wrote:
         | From this [0] list it seems there are a bunch of RSA root
         | certificates, but they all use RSA 2048 or 4096, both of which
         | are still secure (with 4096 having diminishing returns compared
         | to RSA 2048 [1]).
         | 
         | The article was about RSA 512 which has been known to be weak
         | and crackable for a long time [2].
         | 
         | [0]: https://github.com/eu-digital-green-certificates/dgc-
         | partici...
         | 
         | [1]: https://www.gnupg.org/faq/gnupg-
         | faq.html#no_default_of_rsa40...
         | 
         | [2]: https://it.slashdot.org/story/99/08/29/0213230/512-bit-
         | rsa-k...
        
         | threeseed wrote:
         | EU is in discussions right now to expire COVID passes unless
         | you have had recent vaccines i.e. booster shots. Which means
         | any security mechanism that is defeated will just be fixed
         | every 9 months.
         | 
         | Seems like a lot of hassle for a vaccine that is safe and will
         | save your life.
        
         | jinpa_zangpo wrote:
         | The private keys for the European Green Pass have been leaked
         | and fake passes signed with the keys are being sold on the dark
         | web.
         | 
         | https://threatpost.com/eus-green-pass-vaccination-id-private...
        
           | CorrectHorseBat wrote:
           | >UPDATE: French & Polish authorities found no sign of
           | cryptographic compromise in the leak of the private key used
           | to sign the vaccine passports and to create fake passes for
           | Mickey Mouse and Adolf Hitler, et al.
           | 
           | Afaik it was a leaked login, not a leak of the keys.
        
             | jokethrowaway wrote:
             | Shouldn't they have a record of all the things they signed?
             | 
             | I would expect them to know where and when that Adolf pass
             | was generated
        
           | radicalbyte wrote:
           | The private keys were _NOT_ leaked.
           | 
           | There have been fraudulently obtained passes sold on the dark
           | web. There have also been numerous arrests throughout the
           | whole of Europe for this.
           | 
           | The vast majority of the dark-web suppliers are scammers -
           | many of the adverts include a mix of QRs people have posted
           | to social media and a large number of example QR. Including
           | examples that I have generated in the past and used in
           | presentations / on github.
        
             | d0gsg0w00f wrote:
             | Why not just charge the unvaccinated with attempted
             | manslaughter or reckless endangerment and put them all in
             | jail? /s
        
           | lucb1e wrote:
           | Ah yes, repeat the evil dark web narrative. As if a VPS in
           | Russia would get you into trouble. Criminals will be
           | criminals, also if tor etc. wouldn't exist and non-criminals
           | wouldn't get to be anonymous, too.
        
           | jeroenhd wrote:
           | The keys were not leaked but the web interfaces that allowed
           | generation of these certificates was left open and
           | accessible.
           | 
           | Passes have been sold (through the clear web and the dark
           | web) but many have also been revoked since. As far as I know,
           | the certificates being sold right now are either someone
           | else's certificate (for places that don't check your ID when
           | you walk in) and certificates generated by people working for
           | places that also give out legitimate certificates, such as
           | some pharmacies and hospitals.
        
           | stavros wrote:
           | They haven't been revoked yet?
        
             | acqbu wrote:
             | Some have, but not all... yet.
        
       | gaius_baltar wrote:
       | Random question, but related: Like this example, I see lots of
       | other applications that require a QR code storing binary data and
       | chose to encoded this data as Base64 (or others) and then add it
       | to a ASCII-only QR code format. Why don't they use a binary-mode
       | QR code? Compatibility?
        
         | zirror wrote:
         | The EU's Digital Green Certificate [1] uses Base45, which I
         | think they basically invented. They do this because "even in
         | Byte mode a typical QR-code reader tries to interpret a byte
         | sequence as a UTF-8 or ISO/IEC 8859-1 encoded text."[2] They
         | use the 45 chars allowed by the alphanumeric-mode IIRC.
         | 
         | [1]: https://github.com/eu-digital-green-certificates/dgc-
         | overvie...
         | 
         | [2]: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-faltstrom-base45/
        
         | TechBro8615 wrote:
         | The most common reason is probably because it's easier to
         | develop, debug and test code that outputs ASCII strings rather
         | than binary blobs.
        
         | gnabgib wrote:
         | It's a weird situation, but it's very obvious with HC1 and SHC
         | cards.
         | 
         | It starts with JWT. JSON is a human readable format (in utf-8),
         | if humans don't need to read, the data could be binary, and the
         | format could be exact. JSON isn't an exact spec, which is
         | mostly inherited from JavaScript (there's no such thing as an
         | integer only floating point, so 1e3==1000==1000.0==1.00e3 in
         | human-readable form, as a stored number they are identical).
         | Then there's differences in white-space (new lines,
         | indentation) - although this could likely be overcome with
         | convention. Because of this the JWT creators said instead of
         | signing the data, we'll sign the exact representation in the
         | payload - but of course with white-space and formatting
         | variance (including a deserialize/serialize loops changing
         | representations, or - in the case of bearer tokens, the HTTP
         | spec allowing newlines/white space to be inserted at the
         | protocol level) they had to encode it as non-human readable
         | (base64). Now everyone agrees you're signing that exact Base64
         | representation of the JSON object. But! We've build a(n
         | arguably verbose) human readable format that isn't readable by
         | humans.
         | 
         | The SHC spec (common in North America) actually holds a JWT
         | that's signed by an elliptic curve private key. You can
         | validate the signature with a public key. The public/private
         | choice here is great, the JWT is terrible.. they've doubled
         | down on the mistakes. Further to keep the QR smallish, they
         | zipped the payload portion (which is supported by JWT - this is
         | done before the base64 stage), and use only the minimum QR
         | resilience setting (which is fine if it's on a screen, if it's
         | printed this may lead to reading problems). Now we have human
         | readable (JSON) compressed in machine readable (deflate) in
         | machine readable (base 64) in machine readable (QR) - for
         | machine reading purposes. They didn't even trim the fluff
         | (every SHC begins with 56 because.. you guessed it, the `{`
         | character), or use sensible choices (they don't use
         | IssuedAt/iat, but NotBefore/nbf to indicate the generation
         | date). Anyway, SHC (reasonably) noticed because of the (mostly)
         | base64 encoding the character set is only 64 characters (6
         | bits) which doesn't use the ASCII space (7 bits) very well, so
         | they store the first 'shc://' in ASCII and the rest is a number
         | (there are three modes in QR: ASCII, binary, numeric - the
         | density loosely matches binary representations - a numeric
         | digit (0-9) takes 4 bits, ascii char takes 7 and binary takes
         | 8).
         | 
         | ASCII doesn't support the world very well, UTF8 isn't supported
         | by QR (except as binary).
         | 
         | In the SHC case, because it's signing a specific format/output
         | of the JSON data, it doesn't have the white-space formatting
         | concerns that JWTs have to overcome. If they wanted to stick
         | with a JWT like format (JSON object), they could have skipped
         | the base64 before sign step, at which point they might as well
         | get rid of the header (we're no longer to JWT spec), deflate
         | the message to be signed, and put the signature after the
         | deflated message. All the same data, less of the overhead, and
         | better use of the binary space.
        
           | ipython wrote:
           | It doesn't make any sense to me why they gzipped the data.
           | I've looked at a few real world DGCs and the "compressed"
           | output was actually larger than the original data! Just adds
           | more complexity for no purpose...
        
         | sgtnoodle wrote:
         | Perhaps so that generic QR code scanners can parse it and then
         | know to forward it along to the appropriate app?
        
         | dmurray wrote:
         | Almost always technical incompetence, I think.
         | 
         | At some level "compatibility" is correct. System 1 outputs
         | binary data, system 2 takes that and turns it into JSON, system
         | 3 encodes that in base64, system 4 turns that into QR codes,
         | and system 4 was what was mandated for producing all of the
         | organisation's QR codes.
        
         | umurkontaci wrote:
         | > The reason for representing Health Cards using Numeric Mode
         | QRs instead of Binary Mode (Latin-1) QRs is information
         | density: with Numeric Mode, 20% more data can fit in a given
         | QR, vs Binary Mode. This is because the JWS character set
         | conveys only log_2(65) bits per character (~6 bits); binary
         | encoding requires log_2(256) bits per character (8 bits), which
         | means ~2 wasted bits per character
         | 
         | https://spec.smarthealth.cards/#encoding-chunks-as-qr-codes
        
       | johnchristopher wrote:
       | > Although the code was provided, we took around 2 days to get
       | this running since the code was written back in 2015. Some
       | libraries are not currently supported forced us to make several
       | changes on the code. The project was then running smoothly.
       | 
       | Why not use a VM with older libraries and tools ?
        
         | fouc wrote:
         | Looks like the source code is meant for Amazon's EC2, so it was
         | depending on the python/libraries on the EC2 back then, 5-6
         | years ago.
        
           | johnchristopher wrote:
           | Doh, of course. Thanks :).
        
       | yissp wrote:
       | I remember here in Canada there were concerns about this sort of
       | thing when rolling out our proof-of-vaccination system, but
       | practically speaking, the number of people with both the
       | technical understanding and inclination to do this is surely too
       | small to have a meaningful impact on COVID spread.
        
         | sushsjsuauahab wrote:
         | It seems that actually nothing has had a meaningful impact on
         | coronavirus spread.
        
           | JumpCrisscross wrote:
           | > _seems...nothing has had a meaningful impact on coronavirus
           | spread_
           | 
           | Not sure if trolling, but in case not, vaccination has had "a
           | substantial impact on mitigating COVID-19 outbreaks" in
           | America [1].
           | 
           | [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7709178/
        
             | twofornone wrote:
             | That paper is purely based on a model with [optimistic]
             | assumed effectiveness and transmission parameters. It does
             | not consider any actual infection statistics to come to its
             | conclusion.
             | 
             | I'd love to see a paper explaining why some two months ago
             | cases were already at or approaching record highs in
             | countries with 70-90% vaccination rates, like UK, Israel,
             | multiple EU nations...Gibraltar is particularly interesting
             | because it has a nearly 100% vaccination rate, yet the case
             | rate continues to climb unabated. [0]
             | 
             | People are treating these vaccines as though they were
             | sacrosanct and unquestionable. Meanwhile the pandemic
             | continues nearly unabated and no, this is not a "pandemic
             | among the vaccinated", despite the fervor with which
             | certain interests have attempted to paint such a picture.
             | Public UK data suggests that vaccinated individuals may
             | actually be _more_ likely to be infected some months after
             | their second doses. But no one is talking about that...
             | 
             | 0. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/gibral
             | tar/
             | 
             | 1. https://vladtepesblog.com/2021/10/10/is-this-ade-uk-
             | data-sho... - yes, it's a blog, but it links to the data
             | for you to review yourself. Check the last two columns of
             | the chart on page 13.
             | 
             | This wouldn't be the first time that humans failed to solve
             | a complex problem, I don't see why its so difficult for
             | people to accept this possibility.
        
               | jschwartzi wrote:
               | In my state the vaccination rate is above 70% and the
               | hospitalization rate has decoupled from the positive
               | rate. The spike this winter ended in October whereas last
               | winter it didn't end until January. We've been on a
               | downward trend even with shows and restaurants open and
               | people having parties. So I would cite that as evidence
               | the vaccine is protecting our population.
        
               | twofornone wrote:
               | Or perhaps people are acquiring immunity through contact
               | since the majority of cases have been known to be mild or
               | asymptomatic since the pandemic started? And/or the virus
               | is mutating into less infectious substrains?
               | 
               | Cold/flu viruses come and go. This virus will do the
               | same. People will see it as evidence that the vaccines
               | worked when in reality the pandemic very likely would
               | have ended without them, yet here we are facing
               | mandates...
        
               | d0gsg0w00f wrote:
               | Right, and this is why I have a problem with employer
               | enforced mandates even though I'm vaccinated. The
               | government taking away your right to work and support
               | yourself based on some pretty flimsy data about the
               | public good for something that should be a personal
               | decision. Fact is, the vaccinated really shouldn't be
               | losing much sleep over the unvaccinated other than maybe
               | those dirty people might be taking up an ICU bed when I
               | need one.
               | 
               | Ok fine, you want to enforce this: then just man up and
               | imprison the unvaccinated using force. Don't hide behind
               | employers and make them do your dirty work. Taking away a
               | person's right to work is only 2 degrees separated from
               | making them dependent on the state. It's a fear tactic
               | they're hoping they won't ever have to enforce--not that
               | much different than holding a gun to someone's head.
               | 
               | At the end of the day you're never going to be able make
               | someone do something against their will. People who go
               | against the mainstream will already suffer social
               | consequences. If you have to do something with government
               | resources then beef up the ICU beds .
               | 
               | While you're at it you may as well make it illegal to
               | work if you're a smoker, or obese, or if you've ever had
               | a car accident because those things may lead to eating up
               | an ICU bed for some other person that stands on a higher
               | moral ground.
        
             | cik2e wrote:
             | I like this site for COVID data: https://covidactnow.org/
             | 
             | At a glance, infection rates and vaccination rates seem to
             | be uncorrelated at best.
        
               | boc wrote:
               | Current vaccines are non-sterilizing and therefore do not
               | effectively stop the spread/transmission of SARS-CoV-2
               | (the virus) but is very effective at preventing the
               | disease the virus causes (COVID-19). Initially the
               | vaccines were able to keep viral loads low enough to
               | meaningfully stop the spread, but the Delta variant
               | resulting in far higher viral loads and removed that
               | advantage compared to the original virus.
               | 
               | Arguing that the infection rates are uncorrelated is one
               | thing, but serious illness and death is what we really
               | need to care about with this virus. And for those
               | metrics, vaccination is highly-correlated to better
               | outcomes.
        
               | maigret wrote:
               | That's a common error, reused by antivaxxers. They are
               | indeed because even what we consider relatively high
               | infection levels are just enough to get 15-20% of the
               | population infected per year. This is less than the part
               | of unvaccinated people. That's why having a very high
               | vaccination rate is critical to kill COVID. Above this
               | threshold you'd see the infection rate affected. Still,
               | vaccinations are good strategies because they still
               | reduce infections, or at least severe forms of it.
               | Without it in many countries would have been totally
               | saturated by Delta.
        
             | sgtnoodle wrote:
             | The link you provided describes a simulation based on
             | assumed vaccine effectiveness. It's also from 1 year ago.
             | It doesn't seem to reflect any statistically backed
             | insights into what's actually happened over the past year.
             | Or am I missing something?
        
               | galaxyLogic wrote:
               | According to the following graph deaths per 100,000
               | people are: 18 for unvaccinated 3 for vaccinated. at the
               | peak of the graph between July and October 2021.
               | 
               | Doesn't that tell us that vaccinations help to
               | significantly reduce Covid-deaths?
               | 
               | https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-
               | of-co...
        
               | DenisM wrote:
               | Reduce deaths? yes. But it tells us nothing about
               | reducing spread.
        
               | sgtnoodle wrote:
               | Trying to find some actual data, I googled "covid deaths
               | by month" and I stumbled upon this:
               | https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-
               | death-...
               | 
               | Notably, the "Growth Factor" plot looks qualitatively
               | very similar from April 2020 until now. Before then, the
               | data looks more noisy to me but not necessarily different
               | on average. I believe folk started getting vaccinated in
               | December 2020? Based on that plot, it doesn't look like
               | the vaccine is helping much for the death rate. Maybe
               | that data source is not legitimate, or maybe "growth
               | factor" isn't the right metric to look at?
        
               | bonzini wrote:
               | The current virus has a natural growth factor that is
               | about 3x larger than the OG. So vaccines are at least 66%
               | effective if they are keeping it at bay. Probably more
               | since lots of countries have very low restrictions
               | compared to last year.
        
               | Ambolia wrote:
               | "Covid deaths" are also a very meaningless metric where
               | every country or region does whatever it wants. Excess
               | deaths would be a better metric, but also hard to remove
               | from there all the damage done by lockdowns, stress
               | generated on the population, and by hospitals stopping
               | attending other diseases in some places.
        
               | sgtnoodle wrote:
               | So what's the right available metric to look at that
               | statistically quantifies the effectiveness of the
               | vaccines? Or does one not exist?
        
               | Ambolia wrote:
               | Control groups. But most countries and trials seem
               | decided to get rid of them as fast as possible.
        
               | ziml77 wrote:
               | Why would you remove the excess deaths caused by
               | hospitals not being able to handle non-COVID illnesses
               | due to taking care of COVID patients?
        
               | Ambolia wrote:
               | Because those are dependent on the response to the
               | disease, not the disease itself.
        
         | smnrchrds wrote:
         | The current standard all provinces have switched to uses
         | "Elliptic Curve keys using the P-256 curve", does it not?
         | 
         | https://spec.smarthealth.cards/
        
           | satellite2 wrote:
           | I think the concern were most regarding key theft than a
           | cryptographic attack.
        
         | Tyr42 wrote:
         | No one has actually scanned my QR code so far, only scrolled
         | down to see it say "two doses". So it doesn't matter.
        
         | defaultname wrote:
         | The QR-code based solutions, using elliptic curve asymmetric
         | cryptography, aren't breakable by anyone at present (maybe
         | someone has some monster quantum computer and they could, but
         | they wouldn't be making fake vaccination certificates). The
         | private keys could be stolen or misused of course, but there
         | are very well proven solutions to that given how much of the
         | industry relies upon asymmetric encryption and signing.
         | 
         | Originally the certificates were simple "yeah, they are
         | vaccinated" PDFs that people would alter, which was a pretty
         | low bar.
         | 
         | In discussions like this I think we really need to frame this
         | in the proper context. We're talking about a certificate saying
         | that you did something that you could do for _free_ , which has
         | significant personal benefits, and even greater social
         | benefits, and that a large majority of the public is entirely
         | behind. Making a fake vaccination certificate is like making a
         | fake Grade school graduation certificate -- if someone is at
         | that point in their life, something has gone seriously wrong.
         | 
         | The demand for certificates was just trying to entice the small
         | percentage of holdouts, and of those surely there will be some
         | who will go to great lengths, including committing pretty
         | significant crimes, to avoid it. That pathology can't be fixed
         | easily.
        
         | jeroenhd wrote:
         | The problem is that the people that are a) evil enough and b)
         | technical enough to understand this will sell COVID passes for
         | hundreds of dollars each.
         | 
         | Here in the NL there have been tons of people that sold COVID
         | passes, some working at vaccination places, others working at
         | testing places. Instead of hacking anything, they've just been
         | committing regular fraud. The street value of these passes
         | seems to be round EUR300 to EUR500. The government has been
         | blacklisting these passes ever since they were first spotted,
         | leaving many of their "customers" angry now that they can no
         | longer fraud their way through the necessary checks.
         | 
         | The problem is not so much a technical one, as modern crypto is
         | quite unbreakable. The pass in the article is based on RSA-512,
         | which has been proven to be breakable all the way back in 1999.
         | With elliptic curve cryptography the system can still remain
         | unbreakable even with shorter keys that can fit into a small QR
         | code, though space is rarely a problem with these codes anyway.
        
           | TylerLives wrote:
           | How did the government recognize the fake passes? Just asking
           | so I can alert my government if I see them somewhere.
        
             | jeroenhd wrote:
             | You can't tell from the signature itself, but one big group
             | of people got caught with a vaccination record entered into
             | the system from a company that exclusively takes tests.
             | 
             | I don't know the exact methodology the government uses to
             | catch fraudsters, but from someone who just scans the
             | certificates there's no way to find a fake record.
             | 
             | That is, a fake record that matches the person's ID card
             | details. Here in the NL, that's your initials and your
             | partial birthday. Most abuse is people using other people's
             | certificates, which can trivially be caught by checking the
             | necessary identification, as you're told to by the scanning
             | app anyway.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | jgeralnik wrote:
       | The author went out of their way to hide the factors of N,
       | presumably so that nobody else would actually be able to generate
       | signed certificates. However, they did this by hiding half the
       | digits of the factors.
       | 
       | Revealing so many digits of the factors actually allows easily
       | factoring the original number using a version of coppersmith's
       | method (easy as in under a second on my laptop instead of the 9
       | hours on a distributed cluster the authors used). This is
       | actually a pretty classic CTF exercise.
       | 
       | If I'm still nerdsniped by this tomorrow I'll try my hand at
       | implementing this and factoring the number myself
        
       | coolso wrote:
       | Good! Keep it up. Let things be, enough of this vaccine pass
       | comrade BS.
       | 
       | We who are vaccinated should be at peace and trust this vaccine
       | will reduce the likelihood of severe illness. Those who aren't, I
       | wish them the best, but that's their choice.
       | 
       | Hopefully this will finally encourage smokers to quit and the
       | obese to cut out a few sodas per day.
        
         | 0xTJ wrote:
         | Choosing not to be vaccinated is a harm to society. Being
         | vaccinated isn't just about protecting yourself. It is people's
         | choice not to be vaccinated, and they're responsible for the
         | consequences of that choice, including not being allowed in
         | spaces where they're a hazard to others.
        
           | jokethrowaway wrote:
           | That's a ridiculous narrative for covid where vaccinated
           | people are marginally less contagious than unvaccinated
           | people.
           | 
           | The main benefit of the covid vaccine is reducing symptoms
           | when you get covid and reducing hospitalisations.
           | 
           | If you are worried about getting covid, vaccinate yourself.
           | That's it, you don't need anyone else to be vaccinated.
        
             | barbazoo wrote:
             | > That's a ridiculous narrative for covid where vaccinated
             | people are marginally less contagious than unvaccinated
             | people.
             | 
             | Almost two years in and people still don't understand that
             | there is a difference in severity of an infection. When
             | vaccinated, you are much less likely to develop severe
             | symptoms and very unlikely to have to get hospitalized.
        
             | threeseed wrote:
             | "immunisation with either the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine
             | reduced the chance of onward virus transmission by 40-60%"
             | [1]
             | 
             | That is not marginally less and which is why people should
             | be vaccinated. Also unvaccinated people place significant
             | strain on the hospital system preventing elective surgery
             | and increasing my costs as a taxpayer.
             | 
             | [1] https://khub.net/documents/135939561/390853656/Impact+o
             | f+vac...
        
               | _dain_ wrote:
               | > "immunisation with either the Pfizer or AstraZeneca
               | vaccine reduced the chance of onward virus transmission
               | by 40-60%" [1]
               | 
               | so why are there still soaring case rates in the
               | countries with the most vaccines? I'll trust my lying
               | eyes, thank you.
               | 
               | it's honestly insulting that you can post some pissant
               | "study" like this and expect to be taken seriously when
               | anyone can just look at the case rates and vax rates by
               | country and see that it's obviously wrong.
        
               | threeseed wrote:
               | a) There are still soaring case rates because vaccination
               | rates are not 100% and you have waning immunity. People
               | who are dying are the ones who are unvaccinated. But you
               | will still get breakthrough cases which nobody has ever
               | denied will happen.
               | 
               | b) If you some independent study which proves your
               | statement that vaccines only "marginally" affect
               | transmission then please post it.
        
               | _dain_ wrote:
               | https://eugyppius.substack.com/p/ukhsa-vaccine-
               | surveillance-...
               | 
               | case rates are as high or higher among the vaxxed in
               | every age group that matters.
               | 
               | as for 100% vaxx rates as our way into the promised land:
               | a) lmao and b) this is unfalsifiable. we could get up to
               | 99.9% vaxx rates and corona fanatics like you would still
               | say it's the intransigent 0.01% holdout are keeping us
               | from crossing the finish line. you are just like every
               | other ideological zealot who dismisses the empirical
               | failures of their ideas (nazism, communism, etc) by
               | saying all those real life examples weren't really the
               | True Ism, and that we would have immanentized the
               | eschaton already if not for all those pesky people with
               | their free will.
               | 
               | not to mention there are stable wild animal reservoirs of
               | the virus and those are never going away.
               | 
               | again, you haven't made any coherent argument as to why I
               | can't just look at the case rates by country and compare
               | them to vaxx rates and draw the obvious conclusion. am I
               | not allowed to say the sky is blue without a peer
               | reviewed study?
        
               | wott wrote:
               | > so why are there still soaring case rates in the
               | countries with the most vaccines?
               | 
               | Vaccinated people are not submitted to the same
               | constraints (such as mandatory tests for accessing this
               | and that) so carry the virus in more places favourable
               | for transmission. They also don't worry as much about
               | getting the virus (at the same time rightfully so and not
               | rightfully so), so they give up on taking the precautions
               | they took the previous year, and they also do not take a
               | test when symptoms arise but remain light. All this
               | unfortunately compensate for the fact that, individually,
               | they are less subjected to spreading the virus.
               | 
               | Over here, when a vaccinated person tests positive, their
               | pass is not even revoked :-/ Also, in order to promote
               | vaccination, tests which were free have been made paying
               | for non-vaccinated people; so as a perverse result, non-
               | vaccinated people now test less, thus spread more too.
               | 
               | Basically, the current attitude (both individual and
               | official) seem to imply that it does not matter any more
               | to care about spreading the virus, so long as you are
               | relatively/fairly protected against the consequences. I
               | don't think this is going to turn well, but...
        
               | _dain_ wrote:
               | >Vaccinated people are not submitted to the same
               | constraints (such as mandatory tests for accessing this
               | and that) so carry the virus in more places favourable
               | for transmission. They also don't worry as much about
               | getting the virus (at the same time rightfully so and not
               | rightfully so), so they give up on taking the precautions
               | they took the previous year, and they also do not take a
               | test when symptoms arise but remain light. All this
               | unfortunately compensate for the fact that, individually,
               | they are less subjected to spreading the virus.
               | 
               | this is complete conjecture and moreover the conditions
               | vary by place. for my part (in england) there are no
               | meaningful restrictions on anyone whatsoever, so this
               | can't be the explanation. I've also heard completely
               | opposing theories, that the _un_vaccinated aren't worried
               | about getting the virus so they don't get tested. you can
               | spin any theory you want. nobody knows shit.
               | 
               | (by the way, england currently has the lowest case rates
               | out of the four UK countries + ROI, despite those other
               | jurisdictions having coronapass regimes of varying
               | strictness)
        
           | _dain_ wrote:
           | No, stripping unvaccinated people of their fundamental
           | freedoms (as happened in countries like Lithuania and
           | Austria) is a harm to society. More than harm, it's a
           | complete disintegration.
        
             | pawelmurias wrote:
             | How is locking down only the anti-vax retards any worse
             | then locking down everyone?
        
               | _dain_ wrote:
               | "how is shooting one person worse than shooting two
               | people?"
               | 
               | how about we don't shoot anyone.
        
               | bonzini wrote:
               | If you have the magic recipe for curing everyone that
               | gets sick, I am all for it.
               | 
               | Because metaphorically "not shooting anyone" does not
               | equate to not having a lockdown, if that results in
               | hundreds of literal deaths every day.
        
               | _dain_ wrote:
               | hundreds!
               | 
               | my god there isn't a jak soy enough for you
        
         | dvt wrote:
         | > Good! Keep it up. Let things be, enough of this vaccine pass
         | comrade BS.
         | 
         | You're going to get heavily downvoted, but I totally agree. The
         | vaccine pass is a complete farce. I even have non-technical
         | friends that have faked vaccine passes. For someone even
         | remotely technical, it's trivial to Photoshop.
         | 
         | If only we had the same fervor when it comes to demonizing
         | weight gain, we could save 10x more lives.
        
           | threeseed wrote:
           | 5+ million people have died from COVID.
           | 
           | Despite having most of the world being under lockdown as well
           | as increasing vaccination. Without those measures it could
           | easily have been hundreds of millions.
           | 
           | It is ridiculous and baseless to compare it to obesity which
           | is not causing any significant strain on the hospital system
           | like COVID is.
        
             | dvt wrote:
             | > It is ridiculous and baseless to compare it to obesity
             | which is not causing any significant strain on the hospital
             | system like COVID is.
             | 
             | Wrong[1][2][3][4]. I get that it may not be politically
             | convenient for you, but let's not mince words: obesity is
             | killing many more people than COVID ever did or ever will.
             | 
             | [1] https://www.cardinalhealth.com/en/essential-
             | insights/obesity....
             | 
             | [2] https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1
             | 11302...
             | 
             | [3] https://www.the-
             | hospitalist.org/hospitalist/article/123191/o...
             | 
             | [4]
             | https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/04/obesity-
             | putt...
        
           | asddubs wrote:
           | weight gain isn't contagious
        
             | dvt wrote:
             | Actually, it _is_ , as it tends to be intergenerational[1].
             | Parents that don't care about their health will raise kids
             | that don't care about their health.
             | 
             | [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5305001/
        
               | coolso wrote:
               | Furthermore, even outside of an immediate family, the
               | more overweight people are, the more socially acceptable
               | it becomes, resulting in more obesity.
               | 
               | There's also the massive costs to our healthcare system
               | and insurance premiums.
        
               | threeseed wrote:
               | And yet obesity whilst being a problem for decades has
               | not caused an epidemic of obese people.
               | 
               | Why is that ? Because obesity is not contagious and most
               | people don't make decisions about what they eat and their
               | activity levels based on choices other people make.
        
               | dvt wrote:
               | > And yet obesity whilst being a problem for decades has
               | not caused an epidemic of obese people.
               | 
               | Really? Over _40%_ of US adults being obese[1] is not an
               | epidemic?
               | 
               | [1] https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html
        
               | Scharkenberg wrote:
               | That's not what contagious means.
        
               | dvt wrote:
               | Wrong:
               | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5124998/
               | (also see footnote 1).
        
             | _dain_ wrote:
             | no but it's aesthetically disgusting
        
               | threeseed wrote:
               | Please post photos of yourself.
               | 
               | Would help us to put in context what aesthetic perfection
               | looks like.
        
               | _dain_ wrote:
               | only if you post evidence of your possessing qualia (I
               | have severe doubts)
        
         | vetinari wrote:
         | While I agree with you in principle, in this specific case
         | smokers have an advantage; it is harder for them to get covid.
         | So here it is not exactly motivating to stop smoking.
        
           | jml78 wrote:
           | That was the case with alpha but delta viral load blew that
           | out of the water.
        
       | dzhiurgis wrote:
       | Offline first seems such an oversight from contact tracing
       | perspective.
       | 
       | Also NFC tags could've been better solution, but probably
       | would've sent too much Bill Gates vibes.
        
       | jsiepkes wrote:
       | > we found all hard-coded Public keys were using RSA 512
       | 
       | > Next, the data was hashed using a custom hashing algorithm
       | developed by lachongtech.
       | 
       | Yeahhhh.....soooo.......
        
       | questiondev wrote:
       | does not surprise me, in the future there will only be two
       | governments in the world, polarization will become the norm. each
       | party will think they are right. it will be an umbrella me echo
       | chamber. but it will only exist online. it will manifest in real
       | life but people who dare or who are brave enough to understand
       | someone outside of their comfort zone will quickly realize that
       | we are not 1's and 0's within a machine.
        
       | pier25 wrote:
       | Here in Mexico the gov issued vaccination certificates always
       | have errors.
       | 
       | People have resorted to downloading the PDF and "hacking it"
       | (editing it in Acrobat).
       | 
       | Nobody ever actually checks whether the certificate is valid or
       | not.
        
         | galaxyLogic wrote:
         | I think most people who are smart enough to fake the
         | certificate are smart enough to get vaccinated.
         | 
         | What do you win by using a fake certificate vs. getting
         | protected by the vaccine?
        
           | golemiprague wrote:
           | I know many educated and smart people who are anti vaccine,
           | including doctors, some of them got fake certificates and
           | that is in a modern western country. Nobody is checking it
           | properly, they just see the green colour and let you in,
           | nobody even compare the name to some ID. So the benefit is to
           | get into places they couldn't get into without the vaccine.
        
           | pawelmurias wrote:
           | You can sell fake ones to retards who are scared of the
           | vaccine. Some might be stupid enough to pay good money for
           | it.
        
       | airesearcher wrote:
       | Physical Covid certificates are also not secure at all.
       | 
       | They are easy to copy or fake.
       | 
       | Any scheme which simply puts a cryptographic number on a some
       | Physical card - or behind a regular QR is not secure. A simple
       | photocopy will work just as well as the original. Not to mention
       | Photoshop.
       | 
       | But there is actually a new way to make physical things - like
       | printed Covid vaccination cards - provably unique and authentic.
       | 
       | Much more powerful than holograms and also much more secure,
       | unclonable and authenticatable.
       | 
       | Take a look at Blocktag (blocktag dot com) - Next gen QR codes
       | that anyone can print, yet cannot be counterfeited. And of course
       | linked to blockchain and ready for physical NFTs too.
        
         | heinrich5991 wrote:
         | The QR codes in Germany include your name and a digital
         | signature. You can photocopy them, but the photocopy doesn't
         | work for another person (if the venues would actually ask for
         | your ID).
        
       | slownews45 wrote:
       | Short version if they get taken down:
       | 
       | The validation apps used a 512 bit RSA public key.
       | 
       | They used a factoring app and spend $200 on amazon to factor the
       | private key from the public key.
       | 
       | They were then able to generate the COVID passes.
       | 
       | This is for the Honai Police Dept.
        
         | differentView wrote:
         | >This is for the Honai Police Dept.
         | 
         | *Hanoi
        
         | akomtu wrote:
         | Why would anyone use RSA when we have X25519?
        
           | stonewareslord wrote:
           | The real question is why use 512 bit RSA when you can use
           | 2048+?
        
             | Spooky23 wrote:
             | My guess is Vietnam's spec was to achieve the same level of
             | integrity as a paper document (ie. Minimal) and optimize
             | for cheap/poor quality cameras.
             | 
             | Longer keylengths make it difficult to deliver sufficient
             | payload in a QR. not sure about EU, but the SMART health
             | passes that are the emerging standard use ES256 signatures.
             | 
             | The lack of global leadership for interoperable standards
             | early on made this more difficult. You had the EU, Israel,
             | US states and others who were ahead of the curve, but that
             | approach had limits that were reached.
             | 
             | Now in the US we also have the issue of dealing with states
             | with wacky political stances. States like California, New
             | York and Louisiana, combined with private sector leaders
             | like Walmart and Epic made SMART the defacto US standard,
             | and other countries are recognizing them.
        
             | mastax wrote:
             | So it can fit on a reasonably sized QR code probably.
        
             | est31 wrote:
             | Key size determines number of bytes the signature takes up,
             | which is one of the determinants of the complexity of a QR
             | code. I suppose if you don't know what you are doing, and
             | want to reduce QR code complexity, you lower the key size.
             | 
             | To turn up speculation to 100, this might also be a third
             | world issue, because here in the west we have high quality
             | smartphones with good cameras, but the smartphone cameras
             | there might not be as good, so they might be challenged
             | reading QR codes. 8 years ago I built a thing that had
             | customized links accessible via QR codes, but my buddy's
             | cheap phone couldn't read them due to issues with the
             | camera resolution. A lot has happened in 8 years in terms
             | of progress, but they still put crappy cameras into cheaper
             | phones, and this might still pose a problem for reading
             | complex QR codes.
        
               | dundarious wrote:
               | Take a look at QR image in the post. I haven't seen a QR
               | code in the first world that carries more data,
               | especially not a printed one. It's doubtful they're
               | optimizing for poor cameras or printers any more than is
               | done in the first world, and to be clear, in the first
               | world we still have to optimize for poor cameras and
               | printers.
               | 
               | Decreasing the message size while improving security
               | would obviously be ideal and most likely quite
               | achievable, but there are plenty of wealthy
               | municipalities in the US who don't exactly cover
               | themselves in honor in similar situations.
               | 
               | While I'm not at all saying it's illegitimate to
               | speculate on wealth disparities as a cause, in this case
               | I think it's lazy to call this a "third world issue",
               | even with speculation up to 100.
        
           | somerandomqaguy wrote:
           | Take your pick: Needs to be certified FIPS-140-<n>? Or
           | backwards comparability with really old infrastructure that
           | no one really understands? Or it was just conveniently at the
           | top of the list of ciphers to pick?
        
       | tehjoker wrote:
       | lmao we use pieces of paper with no safeguards, even with a
       | cryptographic break Hanoi is leagues ahead of us
        
       | t0bia_s wrote:
       | It is easier to find someone who give you just papers and flush
       | your dose out. But anyway... Proof of anything based on digital
       | ID is pointless and should be abandoned as soon as possible.
        
         | bigodbiel wrote:
         | Security theatre, like washing streets with chlorine solution
        
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