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Re: [ietf-dkim] small question in draft-ietf-dkim-base-00.txt on TXTrecord

2006-02-20 16:54:09

On Feb 20, 2006, at 1:43 PM, Hallam-Baker, Phillip wrote:
 Douglas Otis wrote:

DKIM should specify a binary structure used with the CERT RR. This RR already offers fields defining the critical hash algorithm, for example. By just specifying the hash used in signature header, once a hash algorithm is later discovered compromised, there is no means to keep bad actors from using this compromised hash algorithm for spoofing messages. It would appear the DKIM draft is not ready.

The CERT RR is utterly useless for our purposes unless you are confident in the ability of DNS to move DNS messages of at least 2Kb reliably.

2048 bits represents 256 bytes of binary data easily and reliably stored using the #37 RR. In addition, the #37 Cert RR also provides a method to reference other key acquisition options in the event something is needed that DNS can not provide.

http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-dnsext-rfc2538bis-09.txt

     Value  Mnemonic  Certificate Type
     -----  --------  ----------------
         0            reserved
         1  PKIX      X.509 as per PKIX
         2  SPKI      SPKI certificate
         3  PGP       OpenPGP packet
         4  IPKIX     The URL of an X.509 data object
         5  ISPKI     The URL of an SPKI certificate
         6  IPGP      The URL of an OpenPGP packet
         7  ACPKIX    Attribute Certificate
         8  IACPKIX   The URL of an Attribute Certificate
     9-252            available for IANA assignment
       253  URI       URI private
       254  OID       OID private
 255-65023            available for IANA assignment
 65024-65534          experimental
     65535            reserved


With a draft describing the data structure, this could be expanded to:
     Value  Mnemonic  Certificate Type
     -----  --------  ----------------
         9   DKIM      DKIM Binary Key
        10   IDKIM     The URL of a DKIM Key Server


My expectation is that you end up in TCP/IP fallback as mandated in the original DNS spec at 500 bytes.

The minimum MTU of 576 bytes constrains DNS messages to 512 bytes.


If you can move packets of that size the need for binary encoding vanishes.

If the goal is to handle 2k bit keys, the need for binary encoding is paramount. Otherwise, something other than DNS is required, like a key server or perhaps DNSsec. : (


-Doug



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