On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 5:54 PM, Doug Barton <dougb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 12/08/2013 09:41 PM, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
<mailto:dougb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
On 12/08/2013 10:21 AM, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
As I pointed out, what I was objecting to was yet another
iteration of
someone asserting that the DNSSEC PKI is different from the CA
system in
a way that it is not actually different.
So I don't have to fix DNSSEC, all I need to fix here is to have
David
and others stop making claims for the protocol that are not
supported by
evidence.
Um, no. What you originally asserted was that the root was
vulnerable to being hijacked by an NSL. You have yet to provide any
evidence of that, and when confronted by evidence to the contrary
you changed the subject.
So leaving aside the fine points of PKI and how they do or do not
relate to the root, do you have _any_ evidence to support your
original assertion?
What I said was that any root management is vulnerable to government
coercion. And that is still obviously true.
So your proof consists of, "Of course I'm right?"
No it consists of the argument that followed but you chose to respond to before you read it.
Theoretically that's true, sure. But the real question is what practical benefit would it have for the coercer? Again I'm asking for you to outline the attack you have in mind in detail.Publishing the legit ceremonies might provide some additional
transparency but does not prevent an illegitimate ceremony being inserted.
Same as for CA PKI, they can make use of the bogus cert in some closed network and hope that the network does not reach ground truth and discover the attack.
There is however another important attack that is unique to DNSSEC which is a denial of signature attack. In the CA system you can always choose another CA. So a legitimate signing request will always be satisfied by some CA in some jurisdiction. The risk in DNSSEC is that the ICANN root signer is coerced publicly to refuse to sign some domain. Congress has the power to pass legislation and a future president might claim that they already have the power.
It is not a threat right now because the cost of switching from the ICANN root is small. But it is a risk that should cause concern and there are steps that would mitigate it. The biggest problem is that it makes ICANN too attractive as a takeover target.
The point at which it would become an issue is when there are embedded devices that are verifying DNSSEC chains that are not able to accept a root key update. Enabling a root key update is one possible solution but it creates a new set of risks.
People can argue that 50 CAs is too many but one CA is too few unless you are running it for yourself alone.
There are several possible solutions possible but they all come down to diffusing the trust at the very apex of the DNS so that no party is able to unilaterally defect.
Sorry, I don't understand most of what you wrote in the paragraph above. It sounds interesting though. :)The only real control is that any attack leaves irrefutable evidence and
only a government has the ability to mount such an attack. The idea that
the NSA or FBI would take such a step in the case of the DNS is
ridiculous, it would be tantamount to a treaty violation. But the idea
that they would take similar action against a US based CA or browser
provider is equally ridiculous.
The point is that the work that Ben Laurie and others have done on Certificate Transparency is just as applicable for DANE Certs.
Website: http://hallambaker.com/