Re: [dtn-security] Including fragment offset in the correlator doesn't prevent all fragment collisions.

[Amy Alford <[e-mail]>]

A 100 byte bundle is created.  Different nodes independently fragment it
into 50 byte fragments.  A subsequent node adds PIB and PCB (so we have
correlated PCB blocks) to each fragment with a security destination of the
bundle destination.   The correlators can collide. (In DTN2, they will
collide.)

If the fragments are reassembled before the destination, the destination
has no way to distinguish the PCB blocks that should correlate with each
other.

Alternatively, if we assume reassembly only happens at the destination
(which 5050 doesn't guarantee), we still have a problem if we use a two
block PIB ciphersuite where one block comes before the payload and one
comes after.

A node creates a 100 byte bundle.  It's independently fragmented into 50
byte bundles.  A subsequent node adds a PIB ciphersuite with a correlated
block trailing the payload.  Again, the correlators collide.  Now, each 50
byte fragment is fragmented again.  So, we have fragments:

(I'm numbering the PIB instances so that we can distinguish them in the
discussion.  The numbers don't correspond to anything identifiable in the
blocks themselves.)

PIB 1 with correlator x -> 0-25
25-50 -> PIB 1 with correlator x
PIB 2 with correlator y -> 50-75
75-100 -> PIB 2 with correlator y

PIB 3 with correlator x -> 0-25
25-50 -> PIB 3 with correlator x
PIB 4 with correlator y -> 50-75
75-100 -> PIB 4 with correlator y

The receiving node has no way to realize that that pre-payload PIB 1 with
correlator x doesn't match up to the post-payload PIB 3 with correlator x.

- Amy

On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 9:11 PM, Peter Lovell <[e-mail]> wrote:

> Amy Alford <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
> >A bundle can be fragmented multiple times independently, so a node may
> >receive multiple fragments with the same offset and length that have
> >traveled different paths (and accumulated different BSP blocks along the
> >way).  Collisions in the correlator values once the bundle is reassembled
> >are inevitable.
> >- Amy
>
> Hi Amy,
>
> my thought is that we have covered the problem of multiple-fragmentation
> and multi-path, but perhaps not.
>
> Can you describe a bundle scenario that exemplifies the issue you see, so
> we can think about it.
>
> Thanks.....Peter
>
>