Re: [kitten] draft-hansen-scram-sha256 and incorporating session hashing for channel binding

[Simon Josefsson <[e-mail]>]

> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 05:11:22PM +0200, Simon Josefsson wrote:
> > > > You then go on to say: "Personally, I would prefer to change to
> > > > another mandatory channel binding that is secure for all TLS
> > > > versions."
> > > 
> > > This is not really appropriate here because it's the applications
> > > that need to do this, and we can't say anything here about this
> > > that will force them to.
> > 
> > > A reference to TLS-SESSION-HASH of the same level (i.e., normative
> > > or informative) as RFCs 5246 and 5929 would be nice.
> > 
> > I believe that what is required is
> > 
> >   1) scram-sha256 has a normative reference to tls-session-hash; or
> > 
> >   2) tls-session-hash uses an Update: that makes it applicapable to
> > all TLS versions, and that it is clarified (if not already the
> > case) that tls-session-hash must be used; or
> 
> And RFC5929.

That's not strictly necessary, is it?  5929 refer to TLS, so if
tls-session-hash update TLS specs, 5929 indirectly refer too
tls-session-hash.  At least that is how I would interprete it.  But
I'm all for making things explicit.

> My vote is for (2).  I don't mind (1) in addition, but I want (2).

There is precedent for that for TLS, several of the security fixes
Update:'s all TLS RFCs.
 
> >   3) scram-sha256 uses a new channel binding that is secure with or
> >   without tls-session-hash.
> 
> We disagree as to (3).  This is advice we can give to apps in the
> security considerations section, not something we can force a SASL or
> GSS mechanism to do because API-wise the mechanism doesn't get a
> choice.

I don't understand this...

> > I believe 1) and 2) would be worse than 3) for the next ~5 years or
> > so, and things being equal after that.  SASL libraries/applications
> > rarely have any influence over TLS internals, but they directly
> > influence the channel binding used.  Using another channel binding
> > for [...]
> 
> No, they don't.  Certainly not GSS ones, and the SASL implementations
> I'm familiar with don't either.
> 
> E.g., GSS_Init_sec_context() doesn't get a handle to a channel to bind
> to, it only gets the channel binding as already extracted by the app.
> Worse, GSS_Init_sec_context() doesn't even get the channel binding
> type.

...and I don't understand any of this.

A new channel binding in SCRAM-SHA256 would work exactly the same way
as tls-unique works in SCRAM-SHA1 today.

In my SASL library, the app has to provide the tls-unique channel
binding (either upfront or in a callback) when SCRAM-SHA1 is used.  If
I would implement SCRAM-SHA256, and assuming that document referred
directly to tls-unique-prf, the app would need to supply the
tls-unique-prf data upfront or in a callback when SCRAM-SHA256 is
used.  I don't see any problem with this.  The channel binding type is
hardcoded with the SASL mechanism name.

> (3) is unworkable.

We disagree.

/Simon