[openssl-users] CBC ciphers + TLS 1.0 protocol does not work in OpenSSL 1.0.2d

Benjamin Kaduk bkaduk at akamai.com
Wed Dec 9 23:13:32 UTC 2015


On 12/09/2015 05:04 PM, Matt Caswell wrote:
>
> On 09/12/15 11:44, Jayalakshmi bhat wrote:
>> Hi Matt,
>>
>> I could build and execute the constant_time_test. I have attached the .c
>> file and test results. 34 tests have failed. All failures are
>> around constant_time_eq_8. This is the function I had mentioned in the
>> earlier mails.
> Not quite all. There is also a failure right at the beginning of your
> log in constant_time_is_zero_8. Although it looks very similar to the
> constant_time_eq_8 failure.
>
> As to the failure it is very strange. This is the function doing the test:
>
>  int test_binary_op_8(unsigned
>                             char (*op) (unsigned int a, unsigned int b),
>                             const char *op_name, unsigned int a,
>                             unsigned int b, int is_true)
> {
>     unsigned char c = op(a, b);
>     if (is_true && c != CONSTTIME_TRUE_8) {
>         printf( "Test failed for %s(%du, %du): expected %u "
>                 "(TRUE), got %u at line %d\n", op_name, a, b,
> CONSTTIME_TRUE_8, c,__LINE__);
>         return 1;
>     } else if (!is_true && c != CONSTTIME_FALSE_8) {
>         printf( "Test failed for  %s(%du, %du): expected %u "
>                 "(FALSE), got %u at line %d\n", op_name, a, b,
> CONSTTIME_FALSE_8, c,__LINE__);
>         return 1;
>     }
> 	printf( "Test passed for %s(%du, %du): expected %u got %u at line %d
> with %s\n", op_name, a, b, CONSTTIME_TRUE_8,
> c,__LINE__,is_true?"TRUE":"FALSE");
>     return 0;
> }
>
>
> and the output we see in the log file is:
>
> Test failed for constant_time_eq_8(0u, 0u): expected 255 (TRUE), got
> 4294967295 at line 85
>
> That big number in the output is actually 0x7FFFFFFF in hex. The
> variable that it is printing here is "c" which is declared as an
> "unsigned char".
>
> Please someone correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't the C spec guarantee
> that a "char" is 8 bits? In which case how can the value of "c" be
> greater than 255?????

C does not make such a guarantee, though recent-ish POSIX does.  (This
system is a windows one, thought, right?)

In any case, due to C's type promotion rules, it's very difficult to
actually use types narrower than 'int', since integers get auto-promoted
to int at integer conversion time.  This has extra-fun interactions with
varargs functions, depending on the platform ABI in use.  (Always cast
NULL to a pointer type when passing to a varargs function; this does
cause real bugs.)  Since c is unsigned, it is odd to see it get promoted
to (int)-1, since C type conversions are supposed to be
value-preserving, but it is certainly possible that the windows ABI is
doing something I don't expect.  Adjusting things so that the format
specifier and the type passed to printf match (whether by casting c to
int or qualifying the format specifier) might help.

-Ben

> Am I missing something?
>
> BTW can we modify the code above to print the value of sizeof(c)?
>
> Matt
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