[HN Gopher] Six Queries to Break into Mega
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       Six Queries to Break into Mega
        
       Author : rudyruiz
       Score  : 36 points
       Date   : 2022-07-16 11:34 UTC (11 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (eprint.iacr.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (eprint.iacr.org)
        
       | sqbell wrote:
       | Y h
        
       | contentboot wrote:
       | >Their attack uses binary search to recover the private RSA key
       | after 1023 client logins
       | 
       | I know this is from the initial paper but it is great to see
       | practical examples of algorithms taught in college/uni.
       | 
       | I always had trouble understanding why we are learning such hard
       | topics to find the number 5 in a sorted list of 10 numbers.
       | 
       | To keep things on topic.
       | 
       | >The patches that MEGA developed to mitigate the original key
       | recovery attack are effective against our improved attack as
       | well, so updated clients are not vulnerable to the techniques
       | presented in this work. However, our optimized cryptanalysis
       | underscores the ongoing risk to unpatched clients
       | 
       | Great to hear that their patches fix the root of the problem but
       | this paper has now significantly reduced the complexity of
       | carrying out the attack.
        
         | IncRnd wrote:
         | >I always had trouble understanding why we are learning such
         | hard topics to find the number 5 in a sorted list of 10
         | numbers.
         | 
         | It is left up to the learner to realize that the list of 10
         | numbers can be either the left side or right side of a higher
         | node, showing that any binary search of 10 numbers works on 20
         | numbers and hence on any size sorted-list. Then, it becomes
         | clear why the average search space decrease from N to log n.
         | 
         | Many people find binary search to be a valuable algorithm to
         | use in practice.
        
         | fnordpiglet wrote:
         | Binary trees and by extension search show up throughout my
         | career - turning problems into a logarithmic search of the
         | solution space and dynamic programming are like the two most
         | practical data structure and algorithms I've been exposed to
         | for truly truly solving hard problems.
        
       | causality0 wrote:
       | Are we still pretending anyone uses Mega for something other than
       | piracy?
        
         | forinti wrote:
         | I keep a backup of my travel photos there.
        
         | aaaaaaaaata wrote:
         | Since they were co-opted?
         | 
         | Probably.
        
       | rvnx wrote:
       | Why so much complexity when all Mega has to do to recover the
       | private key is to capture it using JavaScript ? (they can target
       | specific files or users without getting caught)
       | 
       | https://xkcd.com/538/
        
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       (page generated 2022-07-16 23:02 UTC)