Re: [E2ee] Thoughts on draft-knodel-e2ee-definition

[Olaf Kolkman <[e-mail]>]

> On 19 Oct 2021, at 17:35, Mallory Knodel wrote:
>
> […]
>>> 2. You are, I think, missing the concept of tunnels. Tunnels have 
>>> ends.
>>> Tunnels are used to carry trusted traffic over untrusted 
>>> environments.
>>> Tunnels have "users" that are normally processes. Encryption on 
>>> tunnels is
>>> hugely important to how the Internet works. Now, that may not be 
>>> what you
>>> want to talk about in your document, and that's OK, but the feel 
>>> (partly by
>>> you talking about end-to-end, and partly by the long preamble about 
>>> BGP in
>>> 2.1) is that it is in scope.
>>
>> Wondering if Fred or Olaf could jump in? I think I would say tunnels 
>> are indeed out of scope because it's transport encryption, but you're 
>> right that we talk about BGP. It's only in an attempt to elucidate 
>> the end point and e2e principle.
>>
>> Thoughts from my co-authors on squaring this circle?
>>
>
> I think you can reference tunnels in section 2.2 as a negative 
> example.
>
> For instance (addition in italic)
>
> These end points may then be considered acceptable sub-identities 
> provided that no path between the end identity and sub-identity is 
> accessible by any third party.  _For instance, the common VPN business 
> model whereby a TLS or an IPsec tunnel terminates at a VPN service 
> provider from which the traffic is then forwarded to its destination 
> does not qualify_.
>

Maybe add that the path between the VPN termination point and the final 
destination is accessible to third parties - that is the point I want to 
make. There is of course a tension in this example that the VPN service 
itself (or any other partial tunnel) does satisfy the expectations.

—Olaf