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advisedwangyesterday at 8:25 PM1 replyview on HN

That doesn't sound right to me. This obfuscation isn't about a side-channel on a crypto implementation, this is about literally when your keystrokes happen. In the right circumstances, keystroke timing can reduce the search space for bruteforcing a password [1] but it's overstating to describe that as broken encryption.

[1] https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~daw/papers/ssh-use01.pdf


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Mystery-Machineyesterday at 10:50 PM

THANK YOU!

I'm baffled about this "security feature". Besides from this only being relevant to timing keystrokes during the SSH session, not while typing the SSH password, I really don't understand how can someone eavesdrop on this? They'd have to have access to the client or server shell (root?) in order to be able to get the keystrokes typing speed. I've also never heard of keystroke typing speed hacking/guessing keystrokes. The odds are very low IMO to get that right.

I'd be much more scared of someone literally watching me type on my computer, where you can see/record the keys being pressed.

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