I agree that complexity breeds bug-prone implementations. I wasn't around then; did anybody push back on SNMPv1 as being too complex? http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2002-03.html is mainly about SNMPv1 implementations. ;-) dbh > -----Original Message----- > From: Steven M. Bellovin [mailto:smb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] > Sent: Monday, June 05, 2006 8:21 PM > To: David Harrington > Cc: randy_presuhn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx; ietf@xxxxxxxx > Subject: Re: Best practice for data encoding? > > On Mon, 5 Jun 2006 20:07:24 -0400, "David Harrington" > <ietfdbh@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > Hi > > > > The security problems identified in > > http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2002-03.html "Multiple > > Vulnerabilities in Many Implementations of the Simple Network > > Management Protocol (SNMP)" are not caused by the protocol choice to > > use ASN.1, but by vendors incorrectly implementing the > protocol (which > > was made worse by vendors using toolkits that had the problems). > > > > If "Multiple Vulnerabilities in Implementations" were used > to condemn > > the encoding methods of protocols that have been incorrectly > > implemented, then we would have to condemn an awful lot of IETF > > protocols as being very (security) bug prone: > > > > Works for me.... > > More precisely -- when something is sufficiently complex, > it's inherently > bug-prone. That is indeed a good reason to push back on a > design. The > question to ask is whether the *problem* is inherently > complex -- when the > complexity of the solution significanlty exceeds the inherent > complexity of > the problem, you've probably made a mistake. When the > problem itself is > sufficiently complex, it's fair to ask if it should be > solved. Remember > point (3) of RFC 1925. > > I'll note that a number of the protocols you cite were indeed > criticized > *during the design process* as too complex. The objectors > were overruled. > > --Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb > _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf