Newsgroup: it.comp.sicurezza.pgp
Titolo: cracckata cchiave RSA 640 sistema bancario

notizia giornalistica. se qualcuno ne sa qualcosa di piu' preciso e
tecnico, per favore me lo faccia sapere.
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French banking smartcard cracked : the story!
Paris, September, 18 1999
Abstract :
According to the French newspaper "PiratesMag" Number 5, published on
september, 15 1999, in an
interview of Mr Serge Humpich by Mr Olivier Aichelbaum and Mr Damien
Bancal, a French engineer
that cracked the French banking credit card system based on smart card
last year, he has achieve that
by deciphering a RSA key of 640 bits that is a factor of two prime
numbers of 320 bits. 
Develop (according to the source below) :
In June 1999, the French press announced that Serge Humpich, a 35
year-old french engineer specialized in
computer science has cracked the French credit card banking system
based on smart card with chip, that is said to
be very secured.
Serge Humpich was interviewed at the French TV because he was sued by
"GIE cartes bancaires", the french
organization composed of all the french banks that issued the cards
(all the credit cards are smart cards in France
for many years).
The problem is that Serge Humpich made false smart cards that are
recognised by electronic point of sale terminals
in every shops in France and can successfully make real transactions.
He has tried the system succesfully by building 10 different false
smart cards, and tried each by buying subway
tickets in two tickets dispensers in Paris in 1998. (each of the 10
transactions was about 40 French francs). The
total transaction is equivalent to US $ 63.40. The ticket dispenser
gave him the subway tickets and 10 invoices.
Nobody at "GIE cartes bancaires" has detected that there was a false
transaction.
Next, Serge Humpich, wrote to "GIE cartes bancaires", to tell them
that he has done successfully false transactions
and gave them copy of the 10 invoices given by the subway ticket
dispenser.
His aim was to tell them what he has discovered and to be paid for
that because it took him quite a long time to do
it (it took him 4 years to crack that), he could explain what was the
lack of the system and how to replace it (it will
cost 5 billions of US dollars to replace all electronic point of sale
terminals), not to become rich by buying goods
with false money.
This negociation started one year ago and takes a long time because at
the beginning, they didn't believe him, so he
has to do this example in the French Metro.
But "GIE cartes bancaires" finally decided to sue without telling him
: they wanted to have this information for free,
to confiscate his hardware and hard drive at his home, avoid him to
say anything about this story. So 40 policemen
came to his home and took everything, they went to the office of his
lawyer too and spied his telephone.
They intended to sue him privately, to avoid anybody else to know
about it, but law suits are usually public in
France.
He has always been free but his hardware has not been given back to
him.
Then in June 1999 Mr Serge Humpich spoke about it on French TV with
his lawyer. 
But a french TV company Canal+ that wanted to say more about it has
been censored by the french banking
systeme represented by "GIE cartes bancaires" , that is the first
time, because it was supposed to be an
independant and parody program.
He has been fired from his company (may be because banks made pressure
on the company that hired him).
Now we know a little more about what he has discovered, he doesn't
want to say to much because he was first
supposed to sell this information and because he his sued.
He his sued only for hacking (introduction in an electronic network),
but it happened only when he bought the
subway tickets for the demonstration ! So I think, it is not a crime
according to French law. It is absolutely not
forbidden to spread the secret of the discover publicly (for example
on the Internet).
How he discovered that :
It took him 4 years to crack the system.
Some information about the smart card system is public because it is a
standard.
He thought that tere could be a lack in the system but not in the
smart card, so he attacked the electronic point of
sale terminal and bought two of them. He also bought various hardware
(smart card reader, signal analyzer, logic
analyzer...)
By spying the electronic point of sale terminals he bought, he got
more information about the system. He does not
want to tell everything about it.
Finally he has to decypher a RSA key of 640 bits
About RSA 640 public key :
This is the bank public key that proof that the smart card is issued
by the bank.
It is used to check the digital signature of the smart card.
He used the latest methods and research in factoring huge numbers in
prime factors.
He discovered that the public key (the product N =PxQ, where P and Q
are 2 large prime numbers) has some
special properties that he intended to use.
And he did it successfully by setting up specifically special
softwares and introduced probabilities.
It didn't take him much time to found that numbers, it took him more
time to get the hardware (even sold publicly)
and spying the electronic point of sale terminal.
About the lack of the system :
Not only the size of the key (640 bits) is low (but it is the biggest
number factored as far as we know) It is strange
that a pirate can decypher that system by analyzing it. 
The French banking system should be based on a zero-knowledge
protocol, designed so that analyzing exchanges
between the smart card and the electronic point of sale terminal won't
give any information about the system used
to check the card.
About the attitude of the French system :
it is not acceptable that such an Engineer is sued just because Mr
Serge Humpich found that secret with legal
means and want the information for free.
Moreover, the French banking system continue to lye to clients, banks
and partner, saying that the system is
secured but it is not secured any more.
Apologize for my English in such a technical subject. I tried to
summarize what I know about the subject.
This article is available on 
http://www.pele.org/smartcard.htm
 and may
not be reproduced without my authorization
and the one of ACBM, Pirates Mag Editor 
--- Some links (not much for instance, sorry, some people doesn't want
to talk about this story and some
parts are secret) ---
Web server of Pirates Mag 
http://www.acbm.com
 (in French and the index
of Pirates Mag Number 5 is not yet
published)
Web server of friends of Serge Humpich "
http://altern.org/humpich
 (in
French), also on
http://technopole.fr.fortunecity.com/binaire/101/
Web server of "GIE cartes bancaires" in English (nothing about this
case, they don't want anybody to talk about it)
http://www.cartes-bancaires.com/gb/html/acc/index.html
newsgroup about that in French (thread RSA and 640 bits) :
news:fr.misc.cryptologie 
Part of the interview of Serge Humpich (by Mr Olivier Aichelbaum and
Mr Damien Bancal) in French about
RSA (the interview is two pages long, maybe not all is said in it
because of the lawsuits), (reproduced with the
authorization of the magazine) :
Pirates Mag / ACBM: Il vous faut combien de temps pour retrouver un
couple de nombres ?"
Serge Humpich :Cela dépend. Tout n'est pas automatique, je dois
intervenir "manuellement". Il ne faut pas partir du
raisonnement "soit x tel nombre", il faut dire " soit x un nombre
particulier" et sortir toutes ses caractéristiques
spécifiques. Le produit avait une forme particulière. Aussi, ils n'ont
pas pris le premier nombre, pas le dernier, ni au
milieu, pour gêner ceux qui font un crible en partant d'une telle
position. J'ai fait plein de raisonnements de ce genre
et prévu des probabilités. J'ai utilisé des méthodes récentes de
factorisation de nombres premiers, que j'ai adaptées
à mes nombres particuliers. On pouvait se douter que la solution était
proche de la racine carrée...
Pirates Mag /ACBM :Vous êtes capable de casser du RSA ? Cen'est pas
seulement les cartes bancaires que vous
mettez en défaut. Ce sont également toutes les autres utilisations de
cet algorithme (PGP etc) ? Selon nos dernières
infromations, des chercheurs viennent tout juste de casser du RSA 512
bits! Vous nous parlez de code 640 bits
maîtrisé depuis un an ?
Serge Humpich : Trouver des nombres premiers de plus en plus grands,
ce n'est pas facile. Et, ici les nombres
demandent une particularité supplémentaire qui les rend encore plus
difficile à trouver. L'avenir de cette
implémentation-là est fragilisée par cetteconsidération. Car il n'est
pas sûr que trouver de telles clefs suffisamment
grandes soit plus simple que de briser l'algorithme sur des clefs plus
importantes. Ce qui continuera à se faire de
manière conventionnelle. De plus, mes 640 bits correspondent à deux
nombres de 320 bits. Peut-être que les
chercheurs sont toujours plus forts que moi !
--
Laurent PELE 13 rue Lantiez 75017 PARIS
Tél/Fax 
+33 1 40 25 08 50
 mob 
+ 33 6 08 21 96 69
lau...@pele.org
 
http://www.pele.org
Online multi-currency converter on 
195583.com
Copyright © 1999 Laurent Pelé (except part from Pirate Mag Number 5)
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--
bYeZ
T.H.E. Walrus
Key fingerprint = 82 90 B8 CB CD 47 10 56  36 58 0B 69 61 23 FD F2
PGP key available on keyservers

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