Recognition that security doesn't have to be absolute, and that
security can still be useful for privacy etc even though it is often
incapable of being absolute, is, imo, a good thing, and a nicely
more nuanced approach than the security-ueber-alles approach
of recent years. The idea of the desire to communicate over and
above any demand or requirement for encryption is a pretty clear
user need.
(Oddly, no-encryption as a form of encryption was the DTNRG's preferred
approach to reliability. NULL cases are quite common, if only
for testing.)
I'd like to see this draft discuss http early on - redirecting any http
request to https (via 301/302/303/307 redirection) for login pages etc.
is transparent, opportunistic, and easy to do, and a widespread example
that gets the opportunistic idea across; I've explained this to Stephen
previously.
But implementing something this simple to support the underlying
philosophy is certainly not a 'protocol design pattern', which has to
be the wankiest phrasing I've seen in IETF circles in quite some time.
Lloyd Wood
http://about.me/lloydwood
Oooh! I'm not a draft author, I'm a protocol design pattern originator!
________________________________________
From: ietf <ietf-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org> on behalf of Stephen Farrell
<stephen(_dot_)farrell(_at_)cs(_dot_)tcd(_dot_)ie>
Sent: Saturday, 16 August 2014 10:13 AM
To: Fred Baker (fred); dcrocker(_at_)bbiw(_dot_)net
Cc: Pete Resnick; Paul Wouters; ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
Subject: Re: Review of: Opportunistic Security -03 preview for comment
On 16/08/14 00:44, Fred Baker (fred) wrote:
On Aug 15, 2014, at 4:38 PM, Dave Crocker <dhc(_at_)dcrocker(_dot_)net> wrote:
It never occurred to me -- and I don't believe I have seen
community support for the idea -- that no encryption is reasonable
to count as a form of encryption.
We could discuss ESP-NULL. While I would not agree that it is a form
of encryption, it is a defined algorithm with respect to IPsec ESP.
It is usually discussed in the context of authentication, as a
replacement for ESP-AH.
Actually I don't think we need to go there.
Opportunistic security (OS) is not a form of encryption.
Nor is no-encryption a form of encryption.
OS, according to the draft, is a protocol design pattern that
can result in the use of encryption or that can result in the
use of no-encryption.
That does not make no-encryption a form of encryption.
Both are potential outcomes when a protocol is designed according
to the OS pattern. In other words when a protocol uses the
OS pattern then stuff (e.g. in-band negotiation or whatever)
happens and the end result is the protocol endpoints have a
security configuration (whether to encrypt or not and in the
former case, how) for this "run" of the protocol.
Done well, we'd all hope that no-encryption is a rare outcome,
but we can't rule it out, says the draft.
S.