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Stars! decryption Fri, 09 March 2018 11:34 Go to next message
ricks03 is currently offline ricks03

 
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It's been a long time that the decryption code has been a tightly-guarded secret in the Stars! community. If there's anyone still out there, can someone send it to me or point me to a reference? Given that Stars Autohost protects turn file downloads with a password, others can't get to turns to use the tools on them anyway, so I don't see how there's wide-ranging ability for abuse that doesn't already exist.

I want to develop tools that provide dynamic data to players within a hosted game, but I really would like to be able to do that with password-protected files.

(really, all code that teases data out of Stars! is useful to me. I'm a terrible programmer, so all the examples I can get are helpful).

Rick


[Updated on: Fri, 09 March 2018 11:36]




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Re: Stars! decryption Fri, 09 March 2018 17:21 Go to previous messageGo to next message
raptor is currently offline raptor

 
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YES!

Java version is found in here:

https://github.com/stars-4x/starsapi/tree/master/src/main/ja va/org/starsautohost/starsapi/encryption

Python version found in a different project here:

https://github.com/stars-4x/starsapi-python/tree/master/encr yption

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Re: Stars! decryption Fri, 09 March 2018 17:35 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ricks03 is currently offline ricks03

 
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thank you raptor. Might want to add a note to the other thread that points to the wrong place.

Interesting. Looking at the python code, the known solution is brute force cracking the password? Is there a known way of stripping the password off programmatically?

I can tease things out of python (and java), but I don't have any real ability to write code in them. I"m a lot more likely to strip code out to use it than add things in, but I will certainly point out anything I find that won't work. I'll try to set up the Eclipse IDE.

Thanks
rick



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Re: Stars! decryption Fri, 09 March 2018 19:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
raptor is currently offline raptor

 
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There are two parts to the encryption:

- The symmetric, easily reversible part that is standard on every file
- The asymmetric, difficult to reverse part that is added when a password is used. This must be brute forced.


[Updated on: Fri, 09 March 2018 19:08]

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Re: Stars! decryption Sat, 10 March 2018 02:41 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ricks03 is currently offline ricks03

 
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More interesting. So is the entire data component of the file encrypted (the "difficult" way) when the password is used, or could just the encrypted part be replaced? (In other words, could I perhaps overwrite a unknown password with a known one, and then easily reverse the rest of it) I guess another way to say that would be perhaps to ask is it just the password that's encrypted the difficult way, or does that password prompt encrypting everything the difficult brute-force way?


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Re: Stars! decryption Sat, 10 March 2018 05:19 Go to previous messageGo to next message
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I'll try to explain a bit more how things work. The files are encrypted with the encryption algorithm. We have the way to decrypt this. Additionally, the passwords go through a hash-function. Because of the nature of hash-functions, it's usually extremely difficult to know the input of the hash-function given the output, and therefore we have to try different values (brute-force it). This is also why bitcoins takes so much computing power, because all the miners try to find input-values that will match a given hash-value. It's far easier in stars however, as we are talking about much smaller values. And it is in the nature of hash functions that multiple input values can give the same output value, and we only need one that mathces. Try to create a race in stars with password aaaaa, and you will see that you can also enter aaba when you enter your password, and stars will accept it just fine since those 2 values produce the same hash-value.
I have a tool in the github java project that guesses password, and it is fast if the password is only 4-5 characters. 6 characters and more takes much more time.
However, the stars hash-function is not that advanced, and raptor mentioned in the thread "Should Stars! files structures be publically available?" that "This algorithm can be easily broken, however, by going backwards and attempting to divide by all char values with no remainder, then subtracting a another char value, and keep doing that until your left with only an ascii char left. This would be orders of magnitude faster than brute-forcing because the hash is not one-way. The only thing you have to watch out for is the integer overflow, which seems to happen after only 6 or 7 characters in a password." Haven't tried this myself, but if the password-extractor doesn't give you the answer in a meaningful time, you could try to incorporate this in the algorithm.

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Re: Stars! decryption Sat, 10 March 2018 11:42 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ricks03 is currently offline ricks03

 
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Right. Note I get how hashing and encryption works in general.

Your response however still leaves me thinking about a different solution. If the stars files are encrypted "with the encryption algorithm" that we have a way to decrypt, they can be decrypted. Got it, so we decrypt it, and now we have a decrypted file with an encrypted password stored within.

If I understand correctly from what you said, if the passwords are hashed separately, but not used as part of the base encryption (say, as an encryption key), then they're just stored in the (now decrypted) file.

So why go to the effort of decrypting them? I mean, I don't care about what the password is, I just want Stars! (and tools) to be able to read the file. Just overwrite the encrypted password data with the data for a known (or, really, blank) password.


[Updated on: Sat, 10 March 2018 11:43]




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Re: Stars! decryption Sun, 11 March 2018 12:42 Go to previous messageGo to next message
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If you want to write a tool, or get some info out of the stars files, then decrypting the files are all you need. You don't have to know or decrypt the file's password. That is only for the stars client's benefit Wink
For example, my own GalaxyViewer tool that displays eg planets and fleets in a nice ui, with eg the possibility to filter fleets on eg only nubian hull, or perhaps nubians + dreadnought or only battleships, takes the info from all m-files via the m-file-merger routine, regardless of if some of these files have any race password attached.

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Re: Stars! decryption Sun, 11 March 2018 13:15 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ricks03 is currently offline ricks03

 
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Awesome, very helpful to know.

Does that also mean it should be trivial to rewrite the file with a replaced password? (decrypt file, replace password, recrypt file)?



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Re: Stars! decryption Sun, 11 March 2018 15:23 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ricks03 is currently offline ricks03

 
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Hmm, also I assume the password exists in the .r file (which you don't care about once the game starts). That means the actual source of the password must be stored in the .xy file?

So if I wanted to create a utility to replace a player password, I'd need to decrypt the .xy file, replace the password, and recrypt the .xy file? I've been burned too many times by players I don't know well dropping without providing their password.

Sorry for so many questions; I'll have a much easier time figuring it out internally if I understand what's actually happening.



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Re: Stars! decryption Mon, 12 March 2018 20:57 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ron is currently offline Ron

 
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I think the .xy is only coordinate data for the stars.

Yes, the password would be in the .r file, but remember that a player can change the password, which would be sent into the server via the player's .x file.



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Re: Stars! decryption Mon, 12 March 2018 21:34 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ricks03 is currently offline ricks03

 
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I believe the .xy file includes other data besides the coordinates (tho I can't find the article now). However, the password is probably stored in the .hst file.

The password in the .r file won't matter once the game starts (as the .r file is never needed again). I don't really care about the password, so I just need to decrypt the .hst file, replace the password for an individual player, and then recrypt the file. That means I likely don't care about the password in the .x file either (unless the easier way to replace the password is to modify a .x file). Certainly the .x file is smaller, and the format is (I assume) better known).



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Re: Stars! decryption Sun, 18 March 2018 11:01 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ricks03 is currently offline ricks03

 
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ricks03 wrote on Mon, 12 March 2018 21:34
I believe the .xy file includes other data besides the coordinates (tho I can't find the article now). However, the password is probably stored in the .hst file.


From https://wiki.starsautohost.org/wiki/Technical_Information:
game.xy
is actually a game configuration file, with very basic information:
game settings: universe size, planets density, players number (note: there is no details on specific players and their races), distance between players start locations, game options (like public players scores, galaxy clumping and others) and winning conditions
planet locations and their names (note: there is no planet stats, like minerals concentrations)

But yup, no password info!


[Updated on: Sun, 18 March 2018 11:01]




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Re: Stars! decryption Tue, 31 July 2018 00:49 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ricks03 is currently offline ricks03

 
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OK. So the password is stored in the .m file, in the player block (Block #6), in bytes 12-15. Perhaps everyone else knows this (the player block(s) also exist in the .hst file)

Here's my understanding. Stars file data is stored in blocks. Each block consists of the block type and block size, followed by data that's encrypted (which really isn't "encrypted") using a random seed (which isn't really "random").

If I use the Decryptor class from the stars-4x Github repository: https://github.com/stars-4x/starsapi I can determine the random numbers and decrypt the Player block in the .m file.

I created a game with 2 players, and then I made a copy of it. In one copy, I just saved and submitted, and generated turn 2401. In the other copy, I set the player password in 2400, and generated turn 2401. Bytes 12-15 are all 0s in a non-passworded .m file, and not all 0s in a passworded file. Everything else is the same. I don't know what the password is, but I figure I can just change those values to 0, and reencrypt and write it back out, permitting replacing the password with null (That will take me a while, working from a language I don't know, dealing with binary data which I don't understand, but I'll get there).

What I think is interesting / questionable in my theory is that when I look at the two almost identical .m files from 2401, I would expect only the player block part of the data to be different, but the entire file is different after the FileHeaderBlock (block 8, the first block) and the Block ID and size for Block 6 (the second block).

Or is another level of encryption added on the .m file when a password is set?

If that's the case, it clearly doesn't apply to the .HST file (since the host obviously doesn't need everyone's password). So that password data is likely accessible/changeable in the .HST file, just pull it apart, write the .HST file back out, and generate new turns to generate new, clean, password-less .m files?

Insights appreciated.
Rick





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Re: Stars! decryption Tue, 31 July 2018 13:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
raptor is currently offline raptor

 
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Hi,

If you follow carefully through the method 'readFile(starsFile)' in the python code here:

https://github.com/stars-4x/starsapi-python/blob/master/encr yption/decryptor.py

It shows that the header block is not encrypted and that a salt is pulled out from it. This salt is used to encrypt/decrypt the rest of the blocks and is different for every file (I think) - which is why there will always be differences.

Since the password is in the PlayerBlock, it is also encrypted with the salt and will be different between files at the byte level.


[Updated on: Tue, 31 July 2018 13:10]

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Re: Stars! decryption Tue, 31 July 2018 18:00 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ricks03 is currently offline ricks03

 
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raptor wrote on Tue, 31 July 2018 13:08
It shows that the header block is not encrypted and that a salt is pulled out from it. This salt is used to encrypt/decrypt the rest of the blocks and is different for every file (I think) - which is why there will always be differences.

Since the password is in the PlayerBlock, it is also encrypted with the salt and will be different between files at the byte level.

Yes, I know the FileHeaderBlock is not encrypted, and that the password, as part of the PlayerBlock, will be encrypted. The salt is pulled from the FileHeaderBlock, and then randomness is initialized with is a combination of the Game ID (which is vaguely unique), the turn, the player #, and the shareware state.

Thanks for the idea. Digging into this, the seed does look to be different between the two different 2401 files. That's awesome. It must be a (more) true random number assigned when the turn is created, which explains the difference in the files, and gives me hope that this will work on .m files as well as .hst files.



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Re: Stars! decryption Thu, 09 August 2018 18:19 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ricks03 is currently offline ricks03

 
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I can now reset the password on any .m file or within a .hst file, as long as the file only includes one turns worth of data.

It's trivial with raptor's files (if you actually know Java). Decrypt the file, replace 4 bytes, reencrypt the file. Anyone writing a utility that creates / rewrites Stars! files can in moments create a utility to reset Player passwords.

Re: processing .m files (and .hst files) with more than one turn.

A .m file with more than one turn is (effectively) each turn appended to the last (block structure 8,6,[n],0,8,6,[n].0,8,6,[n],0. etc.]

Anyone know if the encryption seed should be reset on each turn's worth of data?

I suspect the fMulti value (also in the FileHeaderBlock) might well come into play as well. The value for fMulti is either 0 (one turn) or 1 (more than one turn).



[Updated on: Sat, 11 August 2018 15:17]




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Re: Stars! decryption Sat, 11 August 2018 15:19 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ricks03 is currently offline ricks03

 
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A heads up that I'm going to publish a utility to reset player passwords. It's so simple anyone who wanted that ability already has it, they're just keeping it to themselves.


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Re: Stars! decryption Sat, 11 August 2018 23:10 Go to previous messageGo to next message
raptor is currently offline raptor

 
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Yeah, this is part of the reason I started the stars-browser project. I was eventually hoping to be able to do protected client/server communication with something like Autohost, instead of just sharing files on a network share.

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Re: Stars! decryption Sun, 12 August 2018 00:59 Go to previous message
ricks03 is currently offline ricks03

 
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Yeah, it's one reason I built my TotalHost site. But playing a year-long game with people I don't know, who could drop out at at a critical game screwing up point with no way to replace them, has made me only play with friends I've known for a while (burned more than once, badly enough it's made me eschew the general Stars! community even tho it was two decades ago).

Right now I can reset any password. Even for files with multiple turns, I can set it to AI, resolve that, and then change back to not AI and reset the password. Once I figure out how to deal with files including multiple turns, I can build that functionality into TotalHost, and give the game creator the ability to reset passwords (while at the same time notifying all the players what's going on).

Mind you, I'm working on a tool that's likely never going to be used, but everyone needs more hobbies, right? It gives me something to develop my coding skills.

I sent you a PM, can I put code up on the github site?



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