On Mar 22, 2011, at 10:23 AM, Alessandro Vesely wrote: > I'm sorry I'm late, this thread was in my backlog. We now have an obscurity-interest@xxxxxxxx list for further discussion if you wish to join us there. > > On 12.03.2011 19:48, Dean Willis wrote: >> On a related note, we've developed what we think is a secured mail >> protocol suite. Yet we don't use it, instead subjecting our list members >> (and more so the administrators) to having to deal with an endless barrage >> of spam. We probably don't use our secured mail protocol because it is too >> cumbersome. Maybe that should be a wake-up call for us to develop a better >> way to secure mail. > > What secured mail suite? I have some difficulty in recognizing whether > you're talking about SMTP + Submission + DKIM + whatever else or some other > messaging system. I agree that current Internet mail, with its one-figure > legitimate traffic percentage, is a conspicuous representative of IETF's hall > of shame. We have this whole S/MIME thing that nobody uses. We tried to replicate it to real-time communications, like SIP and Instant Messaging. Oddly enough, nobody uses it there either. Maybe that's because it doesn't deploy very well. > >> Most critically, we've recognized that Internet users may have needs for >> privacy [...] And having recognized these principles, we need to start >> taking much more aggressive steps in protocol design to assure that they >> are actually being met in a useful way. > > I also heartily agree with this, and with all the motivations that inspired > this thread. However, I have difficulties resolving my feelings on this > point: Freedom activists in my country bring out a whole load of grievances > every time Berlusconi attempts to restrict usage of wiretapping. In facts, > this tool is a requirement for carrying out investigations at a sustainable cost. I'm not necessarily against wiretapping. I think it's a great way to build a criminal enterprise, if that's your goal. However, I am against explicitly designing exploitable weaknesses into our protocols. I'm even against implicitly designing in exploitable weaknesses by leaving compliance-test requirements for security as "SHOULD" strength issues, or by writing the specs in such a way that we can expect the security functions to never be implemented or used. > I think the IETF must substantiate its position against wiretapping by > providing alternative practical means to counter crime. Weak security doesn't counter crime -- it creates it. For example, the US government recently illegally tapped lots and lots of phone calls and Internet traffic at an AT&T switching center. Had the traffic been properly secured, this criminal behavior could have been prevented. Do you want to counter crime, or prevent criminals from communicating with each other? One is laudable. The other is prior restraint of freedom of speech. > Failing to do so > would recast ourselves as proposers of Utopian designs. And, yes, after more > than a decade of spam supremacy, email would certainly be a convincing > test-bed for our ability at providing such alternative means. > >> We can start by: >> >> 1) deprecating the non-secured variant of every core protocol that has >> both secure and non-secure variants > > Among SMTP variations, RFC 4409 is the more promising requisite for solving a > number of authentication issues. Note that it conflicts with peer-to-peer > visions à la mondonet, though. Well, it's better than nothing. It's got my spam load down to a bit less than 98% of my incoming mail. But we can't expect every IETFer to SMTP-auth with the IETF server for every message they send to an IETF list. Nor can we detect whether remote domains used RFC 4409, nor can we filter on that knoweldge. Consequently, our lists get spammed. Perhaps every server-to-server SMTP transmission should be authenticated and authorized. We tried this (authorizing intermediaries) with SIP's "Consent model". See RFC 5360. That didn't work either; the genie was already out of the bag, and having too much fun running around in his pajamas. > >> 2) not writing any more protocols with secured and non-secured variants >> >> 3) analyzing existing protocols that are fundamentally non-secured and >> determine which, if any, security enhancements should be made normative > > While these are certainly correct, ensuring implementation and deployment is > also fundamental. I accept and respect the limits of IETF's action, and > consider non-enforcement a key feature in the volunteer-oriented design that > is being carried out. However, we should pay more attention to the full > protocol life cycle. I believe that from a security perspective, the most important part of the protocol life cycle is the development and testing phase. People tend to rush right to deployment once something is "basically working". If "security" is deferred to a follow-on exercise, it just doesn't happen. Consequently, we need to make sure that every protocol we write includes its security solutions in the base protocol, not in a layer to be added later. Phase 1 should be establishing a secured channel -- phase 2 is getting the application to work over that channel. Perhaps we should just have Google host a Gmail-four-our-domain setup, have everybody use that, and preclude external email addresses from participation? > >> 4) Doing a much better job of really analyzing the security considerations >> of new work, taking fully into account the principles of privacy, >> integrity, and obscurity. Keep in mind that every protocol has the "good >> citizenship" responsibility not just of addressing these principles >> itself, but of also helping its fellow citizens meet them. > > I understand this as a recommendation to provide means for users of a > protocol --either another protocol or the "end" user-- to discover in some > meaningful way what are the relevant characteristics of the current > communication. By "meaningful" I mean the opposite of those audible but > unidentifiable beeps that all too frequently infest work rooms :-) It's your responsibility to lock your doors even if you have nothing to steal, because if criminals get used to thinking of all doors as locked they aren't likely to keep rattling doorknobs to check. What I'm saying is that even if your traffic isn't "sensitive", that you should treat it as if it were. This makes the traffic for people who ARE worried about being overheard not stand out. It's your responsibility to make your traffic look like gibberish to an intercepter, so that MY traffic (which looks like gibberish even when not encrypted) won't draw undue attention. Be a good neighbor, and help me blend in! > >> 5) Incorporating the principles of Privacy, Integrity, and Obscurity >> directly into our core mission statement, into the very fabric of our >> belief system, just as "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" became the driving >> motto of the Third Republic of France, ending much of the abuse of >> Privilege that preceded the revolution. > > Yes, and, like for points 2-3 above, we must take care of how these > principles are understood by the community at large. Skepticism, > opportunism, and thoughtlessness have spread too much. That's a great tripartate slogan for the counter-revolution. I would happily buy a reasonable T-shirt that proclaims "Skepticism, Opportunism, Thoughtlessness!" -- Dean _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf