Re: [homenet] Kathleen Moriarty's Discuss on draft-ietf-homenet-hncp-09: (with DISCUSS)

[Kathleen Moriarty <[e-mail]>]

Hi Steven,

Thanks for your response and text suggestions.  Inline.

Sent from my iPhone

> On Nov 18, 2015, at 9:20 AM, Steven Barth <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Hello Kathleen,
> 
> thanks for the review.
> 
>> 1. I'm not clear on one of the bullets in section 3, 
>>  o  HNCP nodes MUST use the leading 64 bits of MD5 [RFC1321] as DNCP
>>      non-cryptographic hash function H(x).
>> 
>> Is this meant to use a message digest (RFC1321) or a cryptographic hash
>> for authentication (RFC2104)?  If it's the former, can you make this more
>> clear in the bullet?  If it's the latter, can you update the reference
>> and the number of bits to use for truncation is 80 for the minimum.  You
>> do explicitly mention HMACs later on for PSKs using SHA256, so maybe the
>> reference is correct and the wording should just be a bit more clear?
> 
> I have staged this text now:
> 
>  HNCP nodes MUST use the leading 64 bits of the <xref
>  target="RFC1321">MD5 message digest</xref> as the DNCP hash function
>  H(x) used in building the DNCP hash tree.
> 
> I hope that makes it more clear, that the hash is only used for
> comparison and to detect changes, not as a form of signature or
> authentication.
> 

This does help, thank you!
> 
>> 2. Can you explain why DTLS is a SHOULD and not a MUST?  The bullet in
>> section 3 reads as if this is for use, not implementation.  Is there a
>> MUST for implementation (I didn't see one, but maybe I missed that)?
> 
> The basic idea behind the SHOULD is that there may be cases where either
> physical security of links (e.g. cables) can be ensured or link-layer
> security such as WPA for WiFi is present. In these cases (e.g. some sort
> homenet wifi repeater) the DTLS would be redundant.
> 
> In the Security Considerations sections we currently have a requirement:
> 
>  On links where this is not practical and lower layers do not provide
>  adequate protection from attackers, DNCP secure mode MUST be used to
>  secure traffic.

This may be okay.  I will have to look at the draft again to see the references for DNCP security and will get back yo you as soon as I can do that.  I've had some day job responsibilities this morning.
> 
> which should ensure that devices MUST use HNCP security over both
> physically and link-layer-wise unsecured links. I guess this could be
> reflected in the DNCP profile section as well if that makes it more clear.
> 
> Would that work better or do you have something different in mind?
> 

More later.  Thanks again!
Kathleen 
> 
>> 
>> Could you add a reference to RFC7525 to help with configuration and
>> cipher suite recommendations?  This could be in section 12, security
>> considerations.
> 
> Staged for next revision.
> 
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Steven