Socat: “the hard coded 1024 bit DH p parameter was not prime”
It irks me that in security advisories that fix a <i>possible</i> backdoor—like here—sometimes no root cause analysis is done or communicated to the public. Who chose this parameter? Who wrote the code? Who committed it? So I did a little sleuthing...<p>Here is the commit introducing the non-prime parameter (committed by Gerhard Rieger who is the same socat developer who fixed the issue today): <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;repo.or.cz&#x2F;socat.git&#x2F;commitdiff&#x2F;281d1bd6515c2f0f8984fc168fb3d3b91c20bdc0" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;repo.or.cz&#x2F;socat.git&#x2F;commitdiff&#x2F;281d1bd6515c2f0f8984f...</a><p>The commit message reads: <i>&quot;Socat did not work in FIPS mode because 1024 instead of 512 bit DH prime is required. Thanks to Zhigang Wang for reporting and sending a patch.&quot;</i> So a certain Zhigang Wang presumably chose this prime. Who is he?<p>Apparently he is an Oracle employee involved with Xen and Socat. Here is a message he wrote: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;bugs.xenproject.org&#x2F;xen&#x2F;bug&#x2F;19" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;bugs.xenproject.org&#x2F;xen&#x2F;bug&#x2F;19</a><p>So why has Gerhard seemingly not asked Zhigang how he created the parameter?