Signatures discussion thread

[dmarkwick 261]

There seems to be a need for a general signatures discussion thread, allow me to kick one off starting with a quote from Q:

The signature system is meant actually quite different (as far

as my understanding goes of course).

Every addon which can be used in MP should have a public

signature from the original author.

The signature should be bundled to the addon (in the download /

zipped file) itself or only be available on trusted sites (gathering

CRC sums for signatures would be a good idea IMHO to verify

the authenticity of the signature file. Maybe OFPEC would be a

good place for gathering those).

Now with the signature file every server admin can dedice

whether he wants to explizitly allow the addon/every file signed

with the given key on his server (by putting the key on his

server) or not (by not doing it).

Via server side scripting one should be able to do additional

logic on unsigned data, like "if addon name == xyz, no action,

else kick user" etc.

(onUnsignedData - params: user id, file name)

---

So from my understanding a few thoughts:

1) If an addon maker signs his xxx different addons with the

same key, they can be allowed and disallowed only as a whole.

So it seems better to have one key pair for every addon.

2) Once you update an addon, you could just use the original

private key to sign it again. However this sounds like a bad idea

to me. If you sign the addon with a new key, a server admin

could disallow (= not allow // not having the key file on the

server) outdated versions of an addon and allow only the latest

version of the addon.

3) Based on the patching topic a nice addition to the system

would be a disallowKey folder on the server, where an admin

could move the outdated keys of outdated addons.

By this one could handle any addon specificly. Otherwise for now

the system works on not putting the key file on the server and

disallow every unsigned addon or use server side scripting for

that (if its possible at all). So this idea would help to manage

outdated and unwanted _signed_ addons very much!

reference:

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/ArmA:_Server_Side_Scripting

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/ArmA:_Addon_Signatures

PS: We haven't done testing on this yet. So this is just

assumtion on my side based on the info available.

No guarantee on my statements though!

Sorry for any unlogical or bad thinking on my side.

PSS: Certain aspects of best cheat protection and handling is

still to be developed.

Edited by Q on Sep. 20 2007,14:52

To which I responded:

Once you update an addon, you could just use the original

private key to sign it again. However this sounds like a bad idea

to me. If you sign the addon with a new key, a server admin

could disallow (= not allow // not having the key file on the

server) outdated versions of an addon and allow only the latest

version of the addon.

This sounds like a good idea and a bad idea to me

I can see how updates to some addons can vary quite a lot between versions, even causing quite dramatic differences in what each players see.

However I don't think we need a situation where rapidly developing addons constantly need to generate new keys for each new version.

I wish there were a system of key + version number perhaps. I think we need a separate thread for this topic

[cross 1]

key-version combination actually means creating multiple signatures.

create a sig as matt-effectsv1.bikey

then matt-effectv2.bikey

and servers take the first one out and use the second one or keep both if they are happy.

But this would be sig-whoring as Q said..

another pro to this is a server may not want to use some other addons from Matt.

So the best thing i guess would be to create multiple signatures like..

matt.bikey (universal)

matt-effectsv1.bikey

matt-effectsv2.bikey (latest)

matt signes all his addons with matt.bikey

matt signs relevant addon with relevant bikey.

So..matt issues 2 signatures (for his effects addon) signed by 1)matt.bikey and 2) matt-effectv2.bikey

and any server who is wlling to accept anything that might come from matt would put the "matt.bikey" (bc matt would sign all his addons with this)

or just puts the "matt-effectsv2.bikey" if wants to limit to the effects only..

PS..saw it afterwards

[MEDICUS 0]

Wouldn't it be possible to check this via for example MD5?

[rundll.exe 12]

Wouldn't it be possible to check this via for example MD5?

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....1154795

EDIT: there is this similar thread in MP already with some good explainations, so no need ofr thisone I guess?

[cross 1]

i agree..followup under dsutils topic under MP and delete this one