Re: Proposed Statement on "HTTPS everywhere for the IETF"

[Stephen Farrell <[e-mail]>]

On 01/06/15 23:41, Roland Dobbins wrote:
> 
> On 2 Jun 2015, at 4:27, Paul Wouters wrote:
> 
>> We had to cater to governments banning encryption for its users, and
>> we now see what that got them.
> 
> They just go around the encryption and compromise the endpoints. 
> They're *governments*, so they have the resources to do that (not
> debating whether or not they should, just stating observed fact).

The proposed statement itself quotes two apparent counter examples
where (allegedly:-) governments used man on the side attacks and
at apparently significant scale.

> 
> Also, universal or near-universal encryption is a serious problem in
> terms of detection, classification, traceback, and mitigation of
> application-layer DDoS attacks.  It drastically limits the scaling
> capacity of defenders, and results in even more cost asymmetry between
> defenders and attackers (in favor of the attackers).

Please contribute concrete text on the technical details of that
to [1]. We do need to document the changes (including downsides)
caused by encrypting more. Text is very welcome for that. (Best
sent to [e-mail] or the authors.)

   [1] https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-mm-wg-effect-encrypt

> 
> My guess is that those who make bold, sweeping statements about how
> everything ought to be encrypted all the time are rarely those who have
> to deal with the unintended consequences of overencryption.

I hope that this discussion doesn't go down the purely distracting
rathole of statements like "everything ought to be encrypted all
the time" - that is as related to this statement as pixie dust
security solutions are to reality, regardless of what position one
adopts in relation to encryption.

That said, I suppose it's inevitable that this discussion at least
looks at the top of that rathole;-) I do hope it's a passing glance
only though.

> 
> In the final analysis, there are no technical solutions for social ills.
>  The entire issue of unwanted surveillance by government entities is a
> social and political problem; it seems pretty clear that since the
> social/political side of things aren't proving to be easily resolved,
> that some folks are advocating doing *something*, *anything*,
> irrespective of whether it will actually make a positive impact on the
> conditions to which they object and without regard to the non-trivial
> side-effects of what they're advocating.
> 
> The IESG and the IETF in general should concentrate on technical issues,
> and work on solving social and political problems should take place in
> other, more appropriate appropriate fora, IMHO.

I don't see how that corresponds to the proposed IESG statement at
all.

S.


> 
> -----------------------------------
> Roland Dobbins <[e-mail]>
> 
> 
>