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Plissken: A Privacy-First Authorization Framework

Plissken provides the backend/frontend code needed to use Password-Authenticated Key Exchanges (or PAKE) to perform logins and registrations.

The project streamlines the use of one of the best PAKEs around (the OPAQUE protocol) for both backend and frontend systems; you can think of this project as a batteries-included PAKE implementation.

The goal of PAKEs is to allow authorization between clients and servers without the servers ever knowing the client's credentials: this means a user's password never needs to leave their device (e.g., browser, phone, IOT device, etc.).

One of the major problems in cybersecurity today that this protocol can solve are database breaches. With PAKEs, a company's database will never store passwords for a hacker to even consider attacking and breaching. Only a password proof of a password exists will ever be stored.

Here's a post by renowned cryptographer Matthew Green explaining the benefits of PAKE protocols and another by Professor of cryptography Bill Buchanan explaining the issues with sharing passwords with servers, data breaches and PAKEs in general.

Overview

Component Breakdown

This project implements the standardized OPAQUE protocol for both backend and frontend systems.

The goal of the project is to be plug-and-play: there're both backend and frontend components here to be used with easy configurations for both.

I'll use the same terms as OAuth2.0 (i.e., tokens, authorization and resource servers) but this project is not a substitute for OAuth2.0 (see the FAQ below).

I'll use the names here quite often in the docs and this document. I'll explain the concept again when it's encountered so consider this just a quick reference:

The components for this authorization system are:

  • protocol-lib: This is the code to understand and work with the OPAQUE protocol, written in Go and located in ./protocol-lib

  • auth-server: A server (or part of a server) that implements protocol-lib

    • An example of this is plissken-auth-server
    • You can use plissken-auth-server or just use it as a reference to implement protocol-lib in your own project

  • resource-server: A server (or part of a server) that yields resources given an access token issued by an auth-server

    • An example of this is plissken-example-resource-server

  • plissken-client: A client that communicats with an auth-server to get tokens so that it can fetch resources from a resource-server

    • Two examples here are plissken-example-nodejs-client and plissken-example-webapp-client, located in ./examples
    • Both those clients use GopherJS to transpile protocol-lib to Javascript. You can also do the same by compiling to WASM or even make a library to be used in Android/iOS devices with Gomobile

  • plissken-auth-server: Plissken authorization server, located in ./auth-server

  • plissken-js-sdk: A Javascript implementation of protocol-lib

    • Located in ./js-sdk
    • The Go bindings are in ./auth-server/cmd/js-bindings
    • See JS Library Breakdown section in this document for more info

  • plissken-example-resource-server: Plissken example resource server, located in ./example-resource-server

  • plissken-example-nodejs-client: An example Node.js app that uses plissken-auth-server and plissken-example-resource-server and acts as a plissken-client

  • plissken-example-webapp-client: An example web app that uses plissken-auth-server and plissken-example-resource-server and acts as a plissken-client

Directory Breakdown

  • ./auth-server/
    • Example implementation of plissken-auth-server
  • ./client-examples
    • ./nodejs: An example Node.js client that uses plissken-js-sdk
    • ./webapp: An example web app client, written in React, that uses plissken-js-sdk
  • ./example-resource-server
    • Example backend usage of plissken-auth-server
  • ./js-sdk
    • Houses a Javascript implementation of the protocol (i.e., plissken-js-sdk)
  • ./protocol-lib
    • Houses protocol implementation (i.e., protocol-lib)
  • All fly.toml files can be ignored: they are there for the demos. See Functional Tests -> Against a web app section of this doc
  • justfile: Uses Just command runner to run commands

JS Library Breakdown

The protocol implementation is written in Go. Rewriting it in Javascript is tedious since you'll have to rewrite every change twice.

What we need will look like this:

   +------------+      +-----------+      +---------------+      +-------------+
   |protocol-lib| ---> |JS Bindings| ---> |plissken-js-sdk| ---> |Any JS Client|
   +------------+      +-----------+      +---------------+      +-------------+

    - protocol-lib:     Plissken protocol library, written in Go
    - JS Bindings:      Go files that provide an easy interface between
                        `plissken-js-sdk` and `protocol-lib`
    - plissken-js-sdk:  Javascript library that calls "Go Bindings"
    - Any JS Client:    Any Javascript code that wants to use Plissken

Here's how the flow of creating a Javascript Plissken implementation goes:

  • Write the implementation once in Go
    • This is protocol-lib
    • All protocol code changes will be in ./protocol-lib/ only
  • Write an interface between the Go and Javascript code in JS Bindings
    • This code lives in ./auth-server/cmd/js-bindings
    • This is the code that will be transpiled with GopherJS to Javascript
    • The generation process occurs with just generate-js-bindings
  • Write a Javascript library that uses the transpiled Javascript
    • This is plissken-js-sdk and it lives in js-sdk
    • This won't need to change much over time
  • And finally use the code in a Javascript client (i.e., Any JS Client)
    • This means just import it from npm as a regular library

Deployments

Dependencies

Managing Old Go Versions

GopherJS and Go need to have the same major/minor versions.

If you have a way to manage multiple Go installations, use yours. If not, use this: https://gist.github.com/afjoseph/90218a0cc753219cf5f07aaab28454c5

Important Note: If you change your Go version, you need to re-download GopherJS.

Usage

Generate a JS library of the protocol

By default, this'll be run before any Git commit to the main branch, so you just need to do this if you're developing the library

just build-js-sdk

Testing

Unit Tests

Those are focused on plissken-auth-server since the protocol and the main codebase are there.

just test-plissken-protocol

A very easy way to understand the protocol is to see the unit test for the whole protocol in ./auth-server/main_test.go

Functional Tests

The best way to understand the system is to run the different components locally and see how they work

Against a Node.js client

This is a non-interactive test that runs a Node.js client against plissken-auth-server and plissken-example-resource-server

  • Run plissken-auth-server locally in a terminal window

      just run-plissken-auth-server-local
  // Or debug-plissken-auth-server to run it with delve

  • Run plissken-example-resource-server locally in another terminal window

      just run-example-resource-server-local

  • Compile plissken-js-sdk in another terminal window

      just build-js-sdk

  • Run plissken-example-nodejs-client in the previous terminal window

      just run-example-nodejs-client
  // This will use the compiled plissken-js-sdk

Against a web app

This is a non-interactive test that runs an SPA (single-page application) server that hosts a very simple web app as a client.

The client will run the authentication against plissken-auth-server and plissken-example-resource-server

  • Run plissken-auth-server locally

      just run-plissken-auth-server-local
  // Or debug-plissken-auth-server to run it with delve

  • Run plissken-example-resource-server locally

      just run-example-resource-server-local

  • Compile plissken-js-sdk

      just build-js-sdk

  • Run plissken-example-nodejs-client

      just run-example-webapp-client
  // This will use the compiled plissken-js-sdk

You can also see web app live in production like this:

FAQ

How is this different from OAuth2.0?

OAuth2.0 is an authorization framework that outlines how clients and servers should work together to authorize clients to use resources safely. OAuth2.0 doesn't say anything about how a client and server should do authorization. In 99% of cases, backends ask the user for their passwords during authorization and they'll hash it locally.

Plissken is a backend/frontend implementation of a PAKE so users don't have to share passwords with servers. It's been designed to work in an OAuth2.0 framework easily since that's the most well-known implementation of client/server authorization on the internet.

To conclude, Plissken can work with OAuth2.0 easily.

Is this Zero-knowledge cryptography?

No. The core author of this repo made a mistake previously by thinking that.

Oblivious Pseudorandom Functions (OPRFs, which this project is based on) are a cryptographic primitive not directly considered part of zero-knowledge cryptography, but they are related cryptographic primitives that can be used in conjunction with zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) to achieve certain security properties.

Zero-knowledge cryptography involves cryptographic techniques that allow a prover to prove a statement's truth to a verifier without revealing any additional information beyond the validity of the statement. Think zk-SNARKs, zk-STARKs and Bulletproofs.

OPRFs, on the other hand, allow a client and a server to jointly compute a function over their respective inputs in a way that the server remains oblivious to the client's input, and the client learns only the output of the function. In other words, OPRFs enable a two-party computation where one party's input remains hidden from the other party. Think a one-sided Diffie-Hellman.

They sound alike: both are used for privacy-preserving applications but they are technically not the same.