Re: [cicm] CICM BOF Summary

[jmitola <[e-mail]>]

Hi, Lev
   Is NIST working on a CICM-equivalent standard as a follow-on to FIPS 
140-3?
Sorry I could not make IETF 81, but I remain interested in the working 
group's charter and technical work.
joe

On 8/2/2011 11:06 PM, Novikov, Lev wrote:
> Last week we had a BOF at IETF 81. Thanks to all who attended (in-person
> and via Jabber). For those who couldn't make it, a summary:
>
> --- Begin Summary ---
> Dan Harkins and Dan Lanz were the BOF Chairs.
>
> Sean Turner and Stephen Farrell are the Security ADs.
>
> Vincent Roca presented slides about using CICM in a
> High Assurance, High Performance Security Gateway.
> Slides: http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/81/slides/cicm-1.pdf
>
> Lev Novikov presented slides about CICM's logical model and how
> security domain separation makes CICM different from other crypto APIs.
> Slides: http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/81/slides/cicm-2.pdf
>
> There were several points of discussion:
>
> 1. What about existing approaches:
>      * Why can't you extend PKCS#11 so that crypto operations like
>        encrypt always return TRUE?
>
>        A few reasons were given:
>        (a) CICM needs richer semantics (more and different kinds of
>            inputs) than what is available in PKCS#11. Previous attempts
>            at extending PKCS#11 became a mess.
>        (b) Return values can be more complex than just TRUE (e.g., list
>            of things that went wrong).
>
>      * What about using an existing protocol as an interface?
>
>        CICM could sit under such a protocol; it is also intended manage
>        the crypto (note the large number of management commands), and not
>        just the pipe (channel).
>
>      * Which approach, C-style or object-oriented, was intended? The .NET
>        crypto classes might be suitable for an object-oriented approach.
>
>        CICM is defined in IDL for which one can generate bindings in many
>        different languages including C, C++, Java, etc. We will have to
>        investigate the .NET approach further.
>
>    ** There was a request that folks on the list discuss these issues for
>       the benefit of the community.
>
> 2. The charter is insufficient for a Working Group:
>
>      * It was noted that there could be two goals:
>        (a) to produce multi-vendor support for a standard interface
>        (b) to introduce these concepts into existing IETF protocols
>
>      * The charter appears to be too detailed; it should focus more
>        on outlining the problem scope well.
>
>      * CICM appears to address requirements that are not well explained
>        in published documents.
>
>      * How would CICM work with Authenticated Encryption with
>        Authenticated Data [RFC 5116], TLS, or IPSEC? What are the
>        consequences on other protocols?
>
> The major consequence of these points is that we should re-write the
> charter and write documents to address the:
>    * larger problem scope
>    * logical model (in more generic terms) and requirements
>    * impact of this logical model on 2-3 existing protocols
>    * details for an corresponding API (e.g., CICM)
>
> --- End Summary ---
>
> More on this to follow.
>
> Lev
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-- 
Dr. Joseph Mitola III, Fellow of the IEEE
DoD SERC Director of Special Projects
Distinguished Professor
Vice President for the Research Enterprise
Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken NJ
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