RFC 6943 on Issues in Identifier Comparison for Security Purposes

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        RFC 6943

        Title:      Issues in Identifier Comparison for 
                    Security Purposes 
        Author:     D. Thaler, Ed.
        Status:     Informational
        Stream:     IAB
        Date:       May 2013
        Mailbox:    dthaler@microsoft.com
        Pages:      26
        Characters: 62676
        Updates/Obsoletes/SeeAlso:   None

        I-D Tag:    draft-iab-identifier-comparison-09.txt

        URL:        http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6943.txt

Identifiers such as hostnames, URIs, IP addresses, and email
addresses are often used in security contexts to identify security
principals and resources.  In such contexts, an identifier presented
via some protocol is often compared using some policy to make
security decisions such as whether the security principal may access
the resource, what level of authentication or encryption is required,
etc.  If the parties involved in a security decision use different
algorithms to compare identifiers, then failure scenarios ranging
from denial of service to elevation of privilege can result.  This
document provides a discussion of these issues that designers should
consider when defining identifiers and protocols, and when
constructing architectures that use multiple protocols.

This document is a product of the Internet Architecture Board.

INFORMATIONAL: This memo provides information for the Internet community.
It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of
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