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Re: Last Call: <draft-ietf-6man-stable-privacy-addresses-06.txt> (A method for Generating Stable Privacy-Enhanced Addresses with IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration (SLAAC)) to Proposed Standard

2013-04-25 16:33:05
One comment and one nit below.

Comment:

There are two places where it is implied that the algorithm in this spec 
mitigates most of the privacy issues associated with embedding IEEE identifiers 
in addresses. The first is in section 1:

For nodes that currently disable "Privacy extensions" [RFC4941] for
   some of the reasons stated above, this mechanism provides stable
   privacy-enhanced addresses which may already address most of the
   privacy concerns related to addresses that embed IEEE identifiers
   [RFC4291].  On the other hand, in scenarios in which "Privacy
   Extensions" are employed, implementation of the mechanism described
   in this document would mitigate host-scanning attacks and also
   mitigate correlation of host activities.

And the second is in section 6:

Finally, we note that the method described in this document may
   mitigate most of the privacy concerns arising from the use of IPv6
   addresses that embed IEEE identifiers, without the use of temporary
   addresses, thus possibly offering an interesting trade-off for those
   scenarios in which the use of temporary addresses is not feasible.

This implication seems misguided. Providing the ability to track and correlate 
the communications of a device that never leaves a single network is a 
significant concern. It is one concern among several that the 
IEEE-identifier-based mechanism raises, but it is a big one IMO. This algorithm 
does not appear to mitigate that concern, so any implication that it does 
should be avoided. I would suggest using "some of the privacy concerns" in 
place of "most of the privacy concerns" in the two sections above.

Nit:

This link in the [Broersma] reference is broken: 
http://www.ipv6.org.au/summit/talks/Ron_Broersma.pdf

Alissa

On Apr 12, 2013, at 11:34 AM, The IESG <iesg-secretary(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org> 
wrote:


The IESG has received a request from the IPv6 Maintenance WG (6man) to
consider the following document:
- 'A method for Generating Stable Privacy-Enhanced Addresses with IPv6
  Stateless Address Autoconfiguration (SLAAC)'
 <draft-ietf-6man-stable-privacy-addresses-06.txt> as Proposed Standard

The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits
final comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the
ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org mailing lists by 2013-04-26. Exceptionally, comments 
may be
sent to iesg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org instead. In either case, please retain the
beginning of the Subject line to allow automated sorting.

Abstract


  This document specifies a method for generating IPv6 Interface
  Identifiers to be used with IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration
  (SLAAC), such that addresses configured using this method are stable
  within each subnet, but the Interface Identifier changes when hosts
  move from one network to another.  The aforementioned method is meant
  to be an alternative to generating Interface Identifiers based on
  IEEE identifiers, such that the benefits of stable addresses can be
  achieved without sacrificing the privacy of users.




The file can be obtained via
http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-6man-stable-privacy-addresses/

IESG discussion can be tracked via
http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-6man-stable-privacy-addresses/ballot/


No IPR declarations have been submitted directly on this I-D.






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