Re: Diversity and offensive terminology in RFCs

[Phillip Hallam-Baker <[e-mail]>]

On Fri, Sep 21, 2018 at 12:33 AM, Lloyd Wood <[e-mail]> wrote:

> "Since the man in the middle is always up to no good,"
>
> TCP accelerators for satellite; email relaying, DNS resolvers
>
> that aren't root name servers...
>
> intermediaries are often there for good helpful reasons.


No, an intermediary is not the same as a Man-in-the-Middle. If you use the
term MITM to me, I will immediately interpret that as a description of an
attack because that is what the established use as a term of art defines it
to be.

You should not be using MITM for any situation where a positive or even a
neutral disposition is intended. It is unclear at best, I regard it as
wrong.

A DNS resolver is a point at which a MITM attack might be staged but it is
not a MITM attack of itself. And the notion that resolvers are mere relays
is actually one that I think is wrong and has held back development of DNS.
The client-resolver protocol need not be the same as the
resolver-authoritative. These are entirely different applications that
should not have been confused in the first place and we are only recently
managing to unconfuse. The no-DNS and DoH work are examples showing why the
resolver-authoritative protocol is not the most effective.

If I talk about an Email relay being a MITM then I am saying that changing
my character set, wrapping lines and all the really obnoxious behavior they
routinely engage in are attacks.


Of course on the gender neutral side, MITM attacks are traditionally
performed by Eve. And historically, many of the intercept operators on the
allied side were women. It was one of the few field combat roles they were
permitted.