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Re: [ietf-dkim] DKIM Threat Assessment v0.02 (very rough draft)

2005-08-12 06:55:32
Andrew Newton wrote:

On Aug 11, 2005, at 6:54 PM, Ned Freed wrote:

As I just stated on the IETF list, absent a clear statement of what this threat analysis is actually supposed to analyze, I for one have little interest in "trying". I view my time as better spent trying to get the relevant ADs and IAB members to produce a coherent statement of what it is they want. Spending time on something that stands a good chance of not being what was asked for is not,
IMO, useful.


Ned,

It would be ideal to have an RFC with the title "How to write a Threats Analysis", but no such thing has been written. We do have three simple questions from the relevant AD, and I don't believe Russ has given them to us as busy-work... he's simply not that type of person.

I don't believe that either Ned or I have been characterizing
this as busy work. The problem is that even the guide Russ
gave is ambgiuous. If I remember correctly, it was what Jim
and Eric were working from when at IETF, and they missed the
mark. As I mentioned to Steve Kent, I _suspect_ I have an
idea of what they want, but neither the bounds nor depth
have been set -- does PHB's email-fax phishing scam along
with the huge number of other variations on the theme need
to be mentioned? What is the approximate weight? 1 page?
10 pages? 1000 pages? The DoD, I'm sure, pays good money
for their analyses and they probably expect them to be
comprehensive.

Ned brought up the PANA threat/requirements draft
(which I had forgot that I was one of the reviewers).
Is that the right model? If so, I have already written a
draft that looks very similar for MASS/DKIM which I was
going to circulate for our requirements deliverable. If
it's not... well, we need help on what it is.

And after hearing people at the BoF speak of DKIM as bounce protection, I can understand the broader IETF community asking us to go through this exercise.

Or they can simply pay a little bit more attention.
If I remember correctly, both the original DK and IIM
drafts had motivating text which largely went through
the various threats due to email forgery. I guess that
the inference is that the threats discussed there were
not sufficient since they also elicited calls for a
threat analysis. Which leaves me even more unsure what
is being asked for.

So I wonder if this threats analysis would benefit from a list of things DKIM is not designed to guard against.

Well, we put several in the charter, maybe it's time
add a new one.

                Mike
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