I was making a general point wider than the specific example of httpbis.
That point is well worth making here.
Lloyd Wood
http://sat-net.com/L.Wood/
________________________________________
From: Roberto Peon [grmocg(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com]
Sent: 15 November 2013 07:14
To: Wood L Dr (Electronic Eng)
Cc: iljitsch(_at_)muada(_dot_)com; IETF Discussion; iab(_at_)iab(_dot_)org
Subject: Re: Mandatory encryption as part of HTTP2
Please follow on the HTTPbis list and contribute there.
We don't need to rehash this again here.
-=R
On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 8:41 PM,
<l(_dot_)wood(_at_)surrey(_dot_)ac(_dot_)uk<mailto:l(_dot_)wood(_at_)surrey(_dot_)ac(_dot_)uk>>
wrote:
+1
mandating encryption is unwise.
Make encrytpion attractive. Make it easy to use and to deploy. Make the risks
of not adopting encryption clear.
But NEVER make it mandatory.
Lloyd Wood
http://sat-net.com/L.Wood/
If we had widespread encryption earlier, we wouldn't have an open web.
________________________________________
From: ietf-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org<mailto:ietf-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>
[ietf-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org<mailto:ietf-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>] On
Behalf Of Iljitsch van Beijnum
[iljitsch(_at_)muada(_dot_)com<mailto:iljitsch(_at_)muada(_dot_)com>]
Sent: 14 November 2013 20:42
To: ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org<mailto:ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>
Cc: iab(_at_)iab(_dot_)org<mailto:iab(_at_)iab(_dot_)org>
Subject: Mandatory encryption as part of HTTP2
Forgive me if this has been discussed before, but I haven't been active on this
list for a while and I didn't see subject lines that indicated recent
discussions on this.
Apparently the chair of the httpbis wg is proposing to make encryption a
mandatory part HTTP version 2:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ietf-http-wg/2013OctDec/0625.html
I have many medium-sized problems with this, including the issues with CAs, the
additional fragility of depending on certs with limited lifetimes, performance
and energy efficiency issues (both the batteries in mobile hosts and the power
use in datacenters), severely reduced cacheability and debugging which are
reasonable tradeoffs when privacy and authentication are needed, but are
wasteful when they're not, which is still very often the case.
But a more fundamental problem with this approach is that it ties HTTP2 to TLS,
while TLS is not a very good technology, except that it has proven easy to
deploy. When we finally figure out how to get IPsec deployed as a general
purpose solution for privacy and authentication, it would be quite annoying to
have to run TLS, too, because HTTP2 requires it.
I'm not entirely sure why the existing problematic solution with certs and CAs
was proposed here, as the intended goal, keep the NSA and friends out of our
business, would be hard to reach that way. Using some kind of opportunistic
encryption would serve that purpose much better, IMO.
(However, I do think there is value in making it possible to enable encryption
when needed/desired without requiring the use of the https URL scheme.)
Deliberating exactly these kinds of issues is why the IAB gets paid the big
bucks. So I hope the IAB can take on this issue.
Iljitsch