In message <200511261243(_dot_)21694(_dot_)mellon(_at_)fugue(_dot_)com>, Ted
Lemon writes:
Making a hash function interchangeable in DHCID makes the conflict detection
algorithm hugely more complicated, and possibly not workable at all. Think
about how that would work.
I confess that I don't see the problem. The updater would do a DNS
query for DHCID RRs; it would be given all of the stored records. The
updater would then use local policy -- that is, an ordered list of
preferred hash functions -- until it found one that was in the
response. That one would be used. If no locally-known hash functions
are in the list, it should behave as if there were no DHCID records
present for that name. DNSSEC could protect against downgrade attacks.
(Speaking of which -- were I still AD, I'd ding this document for an
inadequate Security Considerations section -- apart from the
lack of discussion of brute force attacks, you should cite 3833 for DNS
attacks and explain what the risks are if someone can crack the hash
function by any means, including brute force or eavesdropping on the
wire or (perhaps) a misbehaving updater.)
If you don't agree, I'd strongly suggest using SHA-256 instead of MD5.
Yes, it's more expensive, but I doubt that that's a major hit on
overall system performance here. It would also be useful to include in
the document some discussion of upgrade strategy -- how would we ever
switch to a new hash function? That's non-trivial even for protocols
designed for agility, as Eric Rescorla and I have shown. No matter how
it's done, this one is among the very hardest, since DNS servers would
have to supply DHCID records for several hashes for a number of years.
--Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf