Re: Stream0 Proposal: EMPTY_ACK

[Christian Huitema <[e-mail]>]

What vulnerability? At a minimum, reflection Dos.
Send UDP packet with "0rtt" content. Trigger emty-ack.

-- Christian Huitema 

> On May 23, 2018, at 7:45 PM, Eric Rescorla <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> On Wed, May 23, 2018 at 7:10 PM, Christian Huitema <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> I dislike the EMPTY_ACK because they are "responses to something that could not be decrypted". You don't know where the packet came from, it could be spoofed. So you have on one hand a possible optimization, on the other hand a possible vulnerability, and in all cases additional complexity.
>> 
> What's the vulnerability? Anything more than a spurious retransmit?
> 
> -Ekr
> 
>> 
>>> On 5/23/2018 4:27 PM, Jana Iyengar wrote:
>>> (Moving more discussions from main thread)
>>> 
>>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>> From: Subodh Iyengar <[e-mail]>
>>> Date: Wed, May 23, 2018 at 3:37 PM
>>> Subject: Re: Stream0 Design Team Proposal
>>> To: Mike Bishop <[e-mail]>, Christian Huitema <[e-mail]>, "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>
>>> 
>>> 
>>> FWIW I see EMPTY_ACKs as being very similar to a Duplicate ack. We thought about using Duplicate acks as well but we thought that EMPTY_ACks would be simpler to implement and be able to convey similar information.
>>> 
>>> Subodh
>>>            
>>> From: QUIC <[e-mail]> on behalf of Mike Bishop <[e-mail]>
>>> Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2018 3:26:35 PM
>>> To: Christian Huitema; [e-mail]
>>> Subject: RE: Stream0 Design Team Proposal
>>>  
>>> Christian, can you expand on why you dislike the EMPTY_ACK?  Being able to say “I’ve received some packets from you, but am unable to process any of them because I’m missing some handshake data” seems like a useful way to short-circuit timeouts on clients.  It also doesn’t commit the server to holding any state – IIUC, a server could form a packet containing an EMPTY_ACK and then discard its internal state until it gets the retransmitted (or delayed) Initial packet.
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On Wed, May 23, 2018 at 4:25 PM, Jana Iyengar <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>>> (Forking this discussion off from the main thread.)
>>>> 
>>>>> On Wed, May 23, 2018 at 2:13 AM, Kazuho Oku <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>>>> 2018-05-23 14:29 GMT+09:00 Christian Huitema <[e-mail]>:
>>>>> > I like the proposal. In particular, I really like the encryption of
>>>>> > handshake packets with the handshake key, as it does close a number of
>>>>> > avenues for attacks. And I like that it solves the "ack promotion" issue
>>>>> > that I was complaining against for some time. Turns out that in the current
>>>>> > draft, it is very hard to contain that problem if you enable client auth.
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> > On the other hand, I agree with Martin that a lot of the additions to
>>>>> > transmission recovery should be moved to separate PRs. I am not enthusiastic
>>>>> > with the EMPTY ACK mechanism, or with the proposed "implicit
>>>>> > acknowledgement" of a lower crypto stream by a higher level ack.
>>>>> 
>>>>> At the moment I do not have a strong opinion on the Empty ACK mechanism.
>>>>> 
>>>>> However, regarding how we close the Initial and Handshake contexts, my
>>>>> preference goes to using implicit ACKs (i.e. use the successful
>>>>> receipt of a packet that is protected under a higher level of
>>>>> encryption key as the signal) rather than explicitly ACKing the last
>>>>> flight of data.
>>>>> 
>>>>> As I see, there are two downsides in the Explicit ACKing approach.
>>>>> 
>>>>> * Explicit ACKing requires sending two additional packets during the
>>>>> handshake, which means that we would have more AES operations plus
>>>>> somewhere around 60 bytes of overhead on the wire.
>>>>> * Explicit ACKing requires more signaling from the TLS stack. In case
>>>>> of implicit ACKing, the TLS stack need to only provide the AEAD
>>>>> contexts and the messages, whereas in case of explicit ACKing, the TLS
>>>>> stack also needs to provide a signal indicating the end of the
>>>>> transmission at each encryption level.
>>>>> 
>>>>> The downside of the implicit ACKing approach is that the server needs
>>>>> to signal the termination of the Handshake context using a special
>>>>> frame sent using a 1-RTT packet.
>>>>> 
>>>>> But even taking that into consideration, I think that implicit ACKing
>>>>> is still easier to implement, considering the need for the additional
>>>>> signal in the explicit ACK case that have been described above.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> > In any
>>>>> > case, starting as simple as possible would help having the first
>>>>> > implementations and tests.
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> > On 5/22/2018 8:26 PM, Subodh Iyengar wrote:
>>>>> >
>>>>> > As an implementor of fizz, I support this design and am willing to implement
>>>>> > this as well.
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> > While this is a change in the API that TLS classically exposes, I think this
>>>>> > is the right tradeoff because it helps make things way more explicit which
>>>>> > will prevent several other bugs from happening in the future.
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> > Subodh
>>>>> >
>>>>> > ________________________________
>>>>> > From: QUIC <[e-mail]> on behalf of Martin Thomson
>>>>> > <[e-mail]>
>>>>> > Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2018 8:00:40 PM
>>>>> > To: Ian Swett
>>>>> > Cc: [e-mail]; QUIC WG
>>>>> > Subject: Re: Stream0 Design Team Proposal
>>>>> >
>>>>> > First of all, thanks to the design team for the work they have done.  I
>>>>> > haven't digested everything yet, but I think that I have a good sense of
>>>>> > the shape of the proposal.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > Overall, this looks like a workable design.  It's a lot more invasive of
>>>>> > the cryptographic handshake implementation than I had thought people were
>>>>> > willing to stomach originally.  But it's clear that we've run into problems
>>>>> > with the current, more abstract API and this is a fairly natural way to
>>>>> > split TLS.  I've spent a little time thinking about how this might be
>>>>> > implemented and I think that it's not going to be *too* painful.  The proof
>>>>> > will be in the pudding there though.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > In looking at the PR, I really appreciate seeing all the changes together..
>>>>> > BTW, the link above points to the wrong PR, so be careful (it appears to
>>>>> > have the same content, but that's not guaranteed).  The actual PR is here:
>>>>> > https://github.com/quicwg/base-drafts/pull/1377
>>>>> >
>>>>> > I've pushed a branch to the main repo so that you can preview the entire
>>>>> > document set:
>>>>> > https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__quicwg.github.io_base-2Ddrafts_stream0_&d=DwIBaQ&c=5VD0RTtNlTh3ycd41b3MUw&r=h3Ju9EBS7mHtwg-wAyN7fQ&m=_vGK3zTKFrMOkFihJnPntLYw1T0_NEMiHYSM0Q_u1JA&s=ususmtxI3BTaLlBWe_HkQUWRH4sBI0Cggj1oWZMBHak&e=
>>>>> >
>>>>> > It seems like there are some core changes here and a bunch of separable or
>>>>> > at least secondary changes.  I'm sure that each one has its own
>>>>> > justification, but that isn't always clear. The following changes seem like
>>>>> > they are separable:
>>>>> >
>>>>> > * The use of separate packet number spaces
>>>>> > * The Retry packet changes (and NEW_TOKEN)
>>>>> > * EMPTY_ACK
>>>>> > * The TLS extension for flow control
>>>>> >
>>>>> > Right now, some of these appear to be entirely gratuitous.  I'd like to get
>>>>> > to the bottom of each before we continue.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > At a minimum, the PR we land first should include just the core changes.
>>>>> > As you say, reviewing a monster PR like this will only make GitHub weep
>>>>> > unicorns, but we might be able to cut this into smaller pieces.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > On Wed, May 23, 2018 at 11:31 AM Ian Swett <ianswett=
>>>>> > [e-mail]> wrote:
>>>>> >
>>>>> >> Dear QUIC WG,
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> >> On behalf of the Stream 0 Design Team, I am pleased to report that we
>>>>> > have consensus on a proposed approach to share with the WG. The DT's
>>>>> > proposal will make QUIC and TLS work closer together and incorporates ideas
>>>>> > from DTLS, but it does not use the DTLS protocol itself.
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> >> The DT believes this solves the important open Stream 0 issues. The
>>>>> > proposal will be a bit more invasive in TLS, but we believe it is the right
>>>>> > long-term direction and several TLS stacks (BoringSSL, PicoTLS, NSS, and
>>>>> > Mint) are willing and able to do the work necessary.. A number of stacks
>>>>> > are currently working on implementations of this new approach, which we
>>>>> > hope to have in time for the Interim meeting.
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> >> A design document describing the overall approach can be found at:
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> > https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__docs.google.com_document_d_1fRsJqPinJl8N3b-2DbflDRV6auojfJLkxddT93j6SwHY8_edit&d=DwIBaQ&c=5VD0RTtNlTh3ycd41b3MUw&r=h3Ju9EBS7mHtwg-wAyN7fQ&m=_vGK3zTKFrMOkFihJnPntLYw1T0_NEMiHYSM0Q_u1JA&s=jDNnz34hmWvLSQnHkSnYdihW-jG-0xZ-YYqKq30wVGg&e=
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> >> A PR making the changes to the QUIC documents can be found at:
>>>>> >
>>>>> >> https://github.com/quicwg/base-drafts/pull/1377
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> >> A few design details did not have clear consensus, but it was felt it
>>>>> > would be better to discuss those in the wider WG than delay the design
>>>>> > team.  A consistent choice was made in the PR and these issues are
>>>>> > mentioned in Appendix B of the design doc.
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> >> As always, comments and questions welcome. That said, this is a big PR
>>>>> > and we recognize that some editorial work is going to be needed before
>>>>> > merging. In the interest of letting people follow along, and to keep github
>>>>> > from falling over, we ask people to keep discussion on the mailing list and
>>>>> > refrain from making PR comments.
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> >> See you in Kista!
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> >> Ian and Eric
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> -- 
>>>>> Kazuho Oku
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>