Re: [ipcdn] FW: DISCUSS: draft-ietf-ipcdn-bpiplus-mib-14

"Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@research.att.com> Wed, 06 October 2004 14:39 UTC

Received: from ietf-mx.ietf.org (ietf-mx.ietf.org [132.151.6.1]) by ietf.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1a) with ESMTP id KAA02828 for <ipcdn-archive@ietf.org>; Wed, 6 Oct 2004 10:39:36 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from megatron.ietf.org ([132.151.6.71]) by ietf-mx.ietf.org with esmtp (Exim 4.33) id 1CFD6e-000757-6l for ipcdn-archive@ietf.org; Wed, 06 Oct 2004 10:49:29 -0400
Received: from localhost.localdomain ([127.0.0.1] helo=megatron.ietf.org) by megatron.ietf.org with esmtp (Exim 4.32) id 1CFCtz-00007O-DL; Wed, 06 Oct 2004 10:36:23 -0400
Received: from odin.ietf.org ([132.151.1.176] helo=ietf.org) by megatron.ietf.org with esmtp (Exim 4.32) id 1CEvxH-00083I-Oa for ipcdn@megatron.ietf.org; Tue, 05 Oct 2004 16:30:40 -0400
Received: from ietf-mx.ietf.org (ietf-mx.ietf.org [132.151.6.1]) by ietf.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1a) with ESMTP id QAA07745 for <ipcdn@ietf.org>; Tue, 5 Oct 2004 16:30:37 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from machshav.com ([147.28.0.16]) by ietf-mx.ietf.org with esmtp (Exim 4.33) id 1CEw6c-0008Vb-Qt for ipcdn@ietf.org; Tue, 05 Oct 2004 16:40:20 -0400
Received: by machshav.com (Postfix, from userid 512) id F35C6FB257; Tue, 5 Oct 2004 20:30:35 +0000 (UTC)
Received: from berkshire.research.att.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by machshav.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5FC59FB24D; Tue, 5 Oct 2004 20:30:32 +0000 (UTC)
Received: from research.att.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by berkshire.research.att.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id B79B21AEE4; Tue, 5 Oct 2004 14:48:56 -0400 (EDT)
X-Mailer: exmh version 2.6.3 04/04/2003 with nmh-1.0.4
X-Exmh-Isig-CompType: repl
X-Exmh-Isig-Folder: to-smb
From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@research.att.com>
To: Jean-Francois Mule <jf.mule@cablelabs.com>
Subject: Re: [ipcdn] FW: DISCUSS: draft-ietf-ipcdn-bpiplus-mib-14
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 24 Sep 2004 16:29:43 MDT." <CD6CE349CFD30D40BF5E13B3E0D8480406A38F@srvxchg.cablelabs.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 14:48:56 -0400
Message-Id: <20041005184856.B79B21AEE4@berkshire.research.att.com>
X-Spam-Score: 0.0 (/)
X-Scan-Signature: 9182cfff02fae4f1b6e9349e01d62f32
X-Mailman-Approved-At: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 10:36:21 -0400
Cc: ipcdn@ietf.org, Greg White <g.white@cablelabs.com>, Eduardo Cardona <e.cardona@cablelabs.com>, bwijnen@lucent.com, Oscar Marcia <o.marcia@cablelabs.com>, Russ Housley <housley@vigilsec.com>, "Richard Woundy @ Comcast" <Richard_woundy@cable.comcast.com>, Eric Rosenfeld <e.rosenfeld@cablelabs.com>
X-BeenThere: ipcdn@ietf.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5
Precedence: list
List-Id: IP over Cable Data Network <ipcdn.ietf.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipcdn>, <mailto:ipcdn-request@ietf.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Post: <mailto:ipcdn@ietf.org>
List-Help: <mailto:ipcdn-request@ietf.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipcdn>, <mailto:ipcdn-request@ietf.org?subject=subscribe>
Sender: ipcdn-bounces@ietf.org
Errors-To: ipcdn-bounces@ietf.org
X-Spam-Score: 0.0 (/)
X-Scan-Signature: ea4ac80f790299f943f0a53be7e1a21a

That address most of my concerns.  But I also said this:

  The Security Considerations section says
  
      The time to crack DES could be additionally
      mitigated by a compromised value for the TEK lifetime and Grace Time
      (up to a minimum of 30 minutes for the TEK lifetime, see
      Appendix A [1]).
  
  That's only partially correct.  These keys are confidentiality keys; 
  they're still valuable even after they're no longer in active use, 
  because they can be used to decrypt old traffic.  (By contrast, old 
  authentication keys are useless to an attacker.)
  
You need to strengthen your text; while frequent key changes help,
an attacker can often select what to attack.  For example, email checking
is generally timer-driven; someone monitoring the link can easily spot
an eamil session by noticing the periodicity.  For example, in the middle
of the night, when there's little email traffic (except, of course, for
the daily spam load), there will be a set of very similar (in length
and timing) packets in each direction, every N minutes, where N is probably
in the range 5-15 minutes.  Select the confidentiality key for this
period, attack it, and recover the user's email password.  For that
attack, a key lifetime of 30 minutes or 30 days is the same -- it's a
targeted attack.

_______________________________________________
IPCDN mailing list
IPCDN@ietf.org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipcdn