Description
1. Introduction
This programming assignment aims to make you familiar with some basic ideas in network
security. In this assignment, you are asked to write a Java code (in Java SE 8) to simulate a client
which communicates with a server in an encrypted way using a simple, custom security protocol,
which will be implemented using Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) sockets of Java socket
API. The server entity is supplied to you as a Python program (tested in Python 3.7) for your
convenience. You will use the CryptoHelper class that we provide to you to use the cryptographic
functions that the protocol is based on.
2. Background
The client program that you are asked to implement will operate in a hybrid cryptosystem, which
is basically a combination of symmetric and asymmetric cryptography. You are not required to
have any prior knowledge on any of these subjects; however, we provide very brief explanations
below to give you a basic understanding of these concepts.
2.1 Symmetric Cryptography
In symmetric cryptography, the entities that want to communicate with each other share a single
secret key, which is basically a number that should be known only by the communicating parties.
One can encrypt a message to be sent to another entity using this key, which could be decrypted
only with the same secret key. Therefore, if two entities have previously agreed on a secret key, which is unknown to anybody else, they can exchange classified information (passwords, etc.) in
a secure way.
2.2 Asymmetric Cryptography
Asymmetric crptography, or public-key cryptography, requires each entity to have a unique
public key-private key pair. Each entity must keep their private key secret, while they can safely
share their public key with anybody else. Each public key-private key pair can be used for
verification and encryption.
2.2.1 Verification
An entity X can use its private key to sign a message to generate a signature which is specific to
both message and X’s private key. That is, any change in the message content or the private key
will result in a completely different signature. The signature can easily be verified by any other
entity Y who has X’s public key. Using this principle, Y can confirm that a message sent by X is
not sent by a malicious entity pretending to be X, or the message content is not modified, by
verifying the message-specific signature using X’s public key. In pseudocode:
X:
Y:
signature = sign(, X’s private key)
send(, signature) …
…
…
…
…
, signature = receive()
verify(m, signature, X’s public key)
True/False
2.2.2 Encryption
To send encrypted data using asymmetric encryption, X can encrypt a message using Y public
key, which can only be decrypted with Y private key. Since Y private key is known only by Y, it
cannot be decrypted by anybody else. In pseudocode:
X:
Y:
= encrypt(, Y’s public key) send()
…
…
…
…
= receive()
= decrypt(, Y’s private key)
3. Protocol Overview
The server program provided to you, simple_social_net.py, simulates a simple social networking
site, which uses a custom application layer protocol and a custom security protocol. You are
asked to implement these protocols using TCP sockets by utilizing the socket API of Java. The
client program you will implement, SecureClient.java, must communicate with the server by
using the following format for transmission & reception of each command:
: An 8-byte string, encoded in US-ASCII format. This indicates the command type,
which will be explained in detail below. This field is always unencrypted. : A 4-byte integer in big-endian format. In big endian, you store the most
significant byte in the smallest address. This indicates the length of the content ()
in bytes. This field is always unencrypted.
: A series of bytes with variable length (possibly zero). This is the content of the
command and can carry different information depending on the . This field can be
either encrypted or unencrypted. Possible values for and the content of the corresponding is summarized in the
table below:
HELLOxxx – /
SECRETxx
STARTENC – ENDENCxx – AUTHxxxx RESPONSE
PUBLICxx – PRIVATEx – LOGOUTxx – Note that some command types have lower case “x”s appended to them, in order to keep the
fixed size of 8 bytes. The use case of each command, and the meaning of the content they carry, are explained in the next section.
4. Flow of Events
This section lists the events that should take place when you run the server and client programs.
You are required to design your programs to produce the exact events, in the exact order given
below:
4.1 Handshake
SecureClient (C) connects to the simple_social_net (S).
C sends a HELLO command with no to S to initiate the handshake.
S sends back another HELLO with a as the field.
is used by the client to verify the server’s identity, using the principles
mentioned in Section 2.2.1. has the following format:
NAME=PK=CA=SIGNATURE=
: Name of the server that the certificate belongs to.
: 8-byte public key of the server.
: Certificate Authority (CA). This is a trusted third-party entity that confirms the
validity of the content of the certificate. Therefore, if the client trusts the third-party CA,
then it can trust the content of the certificate.
: 8-byte signature of the CA above. This signature is specific to this certificate
and can only be produced by the CA itself, using its private key (see Section 2.2.1). The
client can verify whether this certificate is really signed by the CA by using the CA’s
public key. C verifies the certificate.
If the verification fails, this means that a “fake” server could be pretending to be S. In this
case, C goes back to step 1 and tries to re-connect.
If the verification is successful, C proceeds to step 5.
C generates a random secret key () for the symmetric encryption.
C encrypts using S’s public key obtained from .
C sends the encrypted using a SECRET command.
4.2 Authentication
C sends a STARTENC command. This indicates that, the field of the commands
sent/received will be encrypted using in a symmetric encryption scheme
after this point.
C constructs the authentication string with the following format:
: bilkent
: A whitespace.
: cs421
C encrypts the authentication string using the .
C sends an AUTH command with field set to the encrypted authentication string.
S sends a RESPONSE command with field encrypted with .
The decrypted response () is a string with value “OK”, if the username and
password are correct.
Otherwise, is “Invalid”.
C sends an ENDENC command, indicating that fields will not be encrypted from
this point on.
4.3 View Public Posts
C sends a PUBLIC command with no to view the public posts.
S sends a RESPONSE command, where is a string of public posts.
C displays on the console.
4.4 View Private Messages
C sends a STARTENC command.
C sends a PRIVATE command with no to view the private messages.
S sends a RESPONSE command, where field is encrypted with .
C decrypts the to obtain string, which contains private messages.
Then, C displays the on the console.
C sends an ENDENC command.
4.5 Log Out
C sends a LOGOUT command to log out.
C closes the connection.
5. CryptoHelper Class
You are provided a Java class that implements methods for the aforementioned signature
verification, secret key generation, encryption, and decryption operations. Note that these
methods provided to you are not real cryptographic operations; instead, they act like placeholders
specifically designed for this assignment. In real life, these methods include very complex
algorithms with strong mathematical backgrounds. However, since these are not in the scope of
this course, you are provided an oversimplified class for the sake of simplicity. 5.1 Instantiation
Before using the helper methods in CryptoHelper, you need to instantiate an instance of
CryptoHelper as follows:
CryptoHelper crypto = new CryptoHelper();
5.2 Verification
To verify the certificate mentioned in step 3 in Section 4, CryptoHelper provides
verifySignature method with the following signature:
boolean verifySignature(byte[] cert, byte[] signature, String ca)
cert: This is an array of bytes with the whole certificate data ( field of the
HELLO message sent by S, see step 3 in Section 4).
signature: This is an array of bytes with length 8, which contains the signature of the
CA extracted from the certificate (cert), as indicated in step 3 in Section 4.
ca: This is the name of the CA, again obtained from the certificate. Encoded in USASCII.
This method simulates a verification operation using asymmetric cryptography. It verifies
signature generated for the certificate of the server (cert) by the CA (ca), by using ca’s
public key that is assumed to be known. It returns true if verification is successful, false
otherwise.
5.3 Secret Key Generation
To generate a secret key to use throughout the symmetric encryption, CryptoHelper provides
generateSecret method with the following signature:
int generateSecret()
This method returns the randomly generated integer secret key. 5.4 Asymmetric Encryption
To encrypt the generated secret key, CryptoHelper provides encryptSecretAsymmetric
method with the following signature:
byte[] encryptSecretAsymmetric(int secret, byte[] pk)
secret: The secret key generated by generateSecret(). pk: Public key of the server in the form of a byte array of size 8, obtained from the
certificate (see step 3 in Section 4).
This method encrypts secret with the server’s public key (pk), so that only the server can
decrypt it using its private key. 5.5 Symmetric Encryption
To encrypt the field of the AUTH command (see Section 4.2), CryptoHelper provides the
following method:
byte[] encryptSymmetric(String data, int secret)
data: The string to be encrypted, which is in section
4.2.
secret: The previously generated secret key. This method encrypts data with a symmetric encryption scheme using secret and returns
the encrypted data in the form of a byte array. 5.6 Symmetric Decryption
To decrypt the fields of the RESPONSE messages received, CryptoHelper provides the
following method:
String decryptSymmetric(byte[] data, int secret)
data: The encrypted array of bytes, corresponding to the fields of some
particular RESPONSE messages received from the server. secret: The previously generated secret key. This method decrypts data using secret and returns its content as a US-ASCII string.
6. Running The Programs
The client program you will implement should be a console application with no graphical user
interface, similar to the server program we provide. You can run the server program with the
following command:
python simple_social_net.py where is the port number that the server will be listening for the incoming connections.
Your client program must work with the following command:
java SecureClient where is the same port number you use for the server. The server program will start
listening for the incoming connections at the local host address (127.0.0.1) at the specified port.
Since you will be running both programs on the same machine, your client must also connect to
the same address and port.
7. Pseudocode
In this section, we provide a pseudocode for the client side to summarize the overall pipeline
given in Section 4.
// Instantiate CryptoHelper
CryptoHelper crypto = new CryptoHelper();
while(true) {
create a socket and connect to (“127.0.0.1”, );
// — HANDSHAKE START
sendHELLO();
// Receive the certificate
byte[] cert = receiveHELLO();
// Get necessary fields from the certificate
byte[] signature = getSignature(cert);
String ca = getCA(cert);
byte[] serverPublicKey = getPK(cert);
// Verification is successful:
if (crypto.verifySignature(cert, signature, ca))
break;
// Verification fails:
else
close the socket and go back to the beginning of the loop;
}
// Create and send encrypted secret
int secret = crypto.generateSecret();
byte[] secretEncrypted = crypto.encryptSecretAsymmetric(secret, serverPublicKey);
sendSECRET(secretEncrypted);
// — HANDSHAKE END
// — AUTHENTICATION START
sendSTARTENC(); // Start encryption
// Send encrypted authentication info
byte[] authEncrypted = crypto.encryptSymmetric(“bilkent cs421”, secret);
sendAUTH(authEncrypted);
// Receive authentication response
byte[] data = receiveRESPONSE();
String response = crypto.decryptSymmetric(data, secret);
print(response); // This should be “OK”
sendENDENC(); // End encryption
// — AUTHENTICATION END
// — VIEW PUBLIC POSTS START
sendPUBLIC();
byte[] data = receiveRESPONSE();
// Decode the byte array into a string & display
String response = decodeUS_ASCII(data);
print(response);
// — VIEW PUBLIC POSTS END
// — VIEW PRIVATE MESSAGES START
sendSTARTENC(); // Start encryption
sendPRIVATE();
// Receive, decrypt & display
byte[] data = receiveRESPONSE();
String response = crypto.decryptSymmetric(data, secret);
print(response);
sendENDENC(); // End encryption
// — VIEW PRIVATE MESSAGES END
// LOGOUT
sendLOGOUT();
close the socket;
Final Remarks
You should run the server program first, then run your client program.
Your programs must not require a user interaction, i.e., they must not take any user input
once they are started.
Your programs must use the CryptoHelper class for all cryptographic operations.
All string-to-byte and byte-to-string conversions throughout assignment should be in USASCII. You can modify the source code of the server for experimental purposes. However, do not
forget that your projects will be evaluated based on the version we provide.
We have tested that these programs work with the discussed Java-Python combination.
You might receive some socket exceptions if your program fails to close sockets from its
previous instance. In that case, you can manually shut down those ports by waiting them
to timeout, restarting the machine, etc.
No third-party packages/sources are allowed, except for the CryptoHelper class that we
provide.
Please contact your assistant if you have any doubt about the assignment.
Submission rules
You need to apply all the following rules in your submission. You will lose points if you do not
obey the submission rules below or your program does not run as described in the
assignment above.
The assignment should be submitted as an e-mail attachment sent to
bulut.aygunes[at]bilkent.edu.tr. Any other methods (Disk/CD/DVD) of submission
will not be accepted.
The subject of the e-mail should start with [CS421_2020SPRING_PA2], and include your name
and student ID. For example, the subject line must be
[CS421_2020SPRING_PA2]AliVelioglu20141222
if your name and ID are Ali Velioglu and 20141222, respectively. If you are
submitting an assignment done by two students, the subject line should include the names
and IDs of both group members. The subject of the e-mail should be
[CS421_2020SPRING_PA2]AliVelioglu20141222AyseFatmaoglu20255666
if group members are Ali Velioglu and Ayse Fatmaoglu with IDs 20141222 and
20255666, respectively. All the files must be submitted in a zip file whose name is the same as the subject line except the
[CS421_2020SPRING_PA2] part. The file must be a .zip file, NOT a .rar file, or any
other compressed file.
● All the files must be in the root of the zip file; directory structures are not allowed.
Please note that this also disallows organizing your code into Java packages. The
archive should not contain any file other than the source code(s) with .java extension.
The standard rules for plagiarism and academic honesty apply. Your submitted codes
will be carefully checked and disciplinary actions will be taken in case of plagiarism.
