Re: [Gen-art] Gen-ART last call review of draft-ietf-mile-rfc6046-bis-05

[Brian Trammell <[e-mail]>]

Hi Alexey,

Thanks for helping me work through these... one more round on open issues, inline below:

On Jan 18, 2012, at 6:43 PM, Alexey Melnikov wrote:

> Hi Brian,
> 
> On 18/01/2012 16:16, Brian Trammell wrote:
>> On Jan 18, 2012, at 3:38 PM, Alexey Melnikov wrote:
>>> On 17/01/2012 10:16, Brian Trammell wrote:
>>>> On Jan 14, 2012, at 9:45 PM, Alexey Melnikov wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>   RID systems MUST use TLS version 1.1 [RFC4346] or higher with mutual
>>>>>   authentication for transport confidentiality, identification, and
>>>>> 
>>>>> Do you mean that a RID client must use X.509 certificates?
>>>> Well, each RID system (HTTP client or server) is identified by an X.509 certificate (hence "mutual"); how can I make this clearer?
>>>> 
>>>>>   authentication, as in [RFC2818].
>>>>> 
>>>>> I find the whole sentence to be confusing. Note that the rules of RFC 6125 for certificate verification are stricter than in RFC 2818 and this sentence can be read as conflicting with the paragraph below which requires use of RFC 6125. What are you trying to say here?
>>>> The intention here is "Use current best practices as would be supported by off-the-shelf HTTP/1.1 and TLS 1.1 implementations to provide mutual authentication." "Current best practices", however, seems to be something of a moving target.
>>>> 
>>>> I cite 2818 as it is the current binding between HTTP/1.1 and TLS. I cite 6125 solely for certificate verification.
>>> How about something like this:
>>> 
>>> OLD:
>>>  RID systems MUST use TLS version 1.1 [RFC4346] or higher with mutual
>>>  authentication for transport confidentiality, identification, and
>>>  authentication, as in [RFC2818].
>>> 
>>> NEW:
>>>  RID systems MUST use HTTP over TLS as specified in [RFC2818], with the exception
>>>  of server TLS identity verification which is detailed below.
>> Ah. Okay, now I understand the issue...
> This is only one of them...
>>>  RID systems MUST use TLS version 1.1 [RFC4346] or higher with mutual
>>>  X.509 authentication. TLS provides for transport confidentiality,
>>>  identification, and authentication.
>> The language has changed in -07 to the following; would this be acceptable?
>> 
>>    RID systems MUST use TLS version 1.1 [RFC4346] or higher with mutual
>>    authentication for confidentiality, identification, and
>>    authentication, as in [RFC2818],
> Part of the issue with this text is that reads as if "mutual authentication" results in "confidentiality, identification and authentication". TLS does, that is why I split the sentence into multiple. Also RFC 2818 is a wrong reference because it doesn't even mention confidentiality.
> I am hoping this is not nitpicking, but I think using simpler sentences clearer.

Absolutely.

>> when transporting RID messages over
>>    HTTPS.
> The rest looks good to me:
>> RID systems MUST use mutual authentication; that is, both RID
>>    systems acting as HTTPS clients and RID systems acting as HTTPS
>>    servers MUST be identified by an X.509 certificate [RFC5280].  Mutual
>>    authentication requires full path validation on each certificate, as
>>    defined in [RFC5280].

So, how about the following:

   RID systems MUST use TLS version 1.1 [RFC4346] or higher for
   confidentiality, identification, and authentication, as in 
   Section 2 of [RFC2818]. RID systems MUST use mutual authentication; 
   that is, both RID systems acting as HTTPS clients and RID systems 
   acting as HTTPS servers MUST be identified by an X.509 certificate 
   [RFC5280].  Mutual authentication requires full path validation on 
   each certificate, as defined in [RFC5280].

Many thanks, best regards,

Brian