Re: [Pana] IESG discussions on draft-ohba-pana-relay

[Glen Zorn <[e-mail]>]

On 6/24/2011 12:40 AM, Jari Arkko wrote:

> We discussed this draft today. The remaining Discuss was about how
> mandatory we should make IPsec. You had discussed about a SHOULD with
> Stephen. I suggested that while interoperability is useful and
> mandatory-to-implement mechanisms are good for it, we also have to talk
> about how much value we bring with a security mechanism. In this case
> there are some issues like MITMs able to block PANA packets. However,
> some of these vulnerabilities are not helped by relay - PAA security, as
> the relay can still do bad things, and because ARP/ND vulnerabilities
> between the client and relay in any case make it possible to become a
> MITM. Stephen had some suggested text that I agree with:
> 
> "PRE/PAA security is OPTIONAL since PANA messages are designed to be
> used in untrusted networks, but if cryptographic mechanism is supported,
> it SHOULD be IPsec."

This is an interesting statement.  Just one question: if it is not
possible to use the protocol in a secure fashion (the claim being that
MITM attacks are impossible to prevent), how is it that the protocol is
"designed to be used in untrusted networks"?

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