RSnake wrote:
2. While thinking more about this solution, I observed that if the
attacker can have an "agent" sharing the same IP address with the
victim (by agent I mean an entity that can communicate with the
target web site and read back its response data), then the algorithms
I suggested will not be effective. Note that an attacker can share IP
address with the victim when both share a forward proxy (e.g. some
universities and ISPs), or when the attacker and victim share the
same machine (multi-user environment). Still, that narrows down the
attack surface significantly.
It should be noted that this isn't as rare as just a few universities
and ISPs. This also happens in lots of corporate networks (rogue user
on the internal network), it happens with lots of internet cafe's, it
happens with AOL (~5MM users) and it happens with TOR users. So while,
yes, I agree it is better than nothing it is hardly a rock solid
solution for anyone on a shared IP.
The point is - someone with shared IP is vulnerable ONLY to an attacker
with the same IP. Which makes attacks much less generic and much more
painful. Rock solid it ain't, but I think it's a pretty good band-aid
until all (hmmm...) clients upgrade to Acrobat Reader 8.0.
-Amit
