Re: QUIC Version Negotiation Extension

[Mikkel Fahnøe Jørgensen <[e-mail]>]

(reposting on proper topic)

Some random observations reading through the document

- Is the order relevant in the receiver version list?

- It is tempting to just hash the received version list, but that requires
agreeing on an algorithm, unless the algorithm is stated to be specific to
that version, which is complicated.

- VERSION_NEGOTIATION_ERROR vs drop - I’m not sure it is a good idea to
close the connection. The initials are public so it is possible to inject
false versions. There are probably many other similar attacks we don’t
bother with, but still …

- Checking that a transport parameter field is the same as the long header
version seems redundant - why have those fields? Is it because the Initial
header fields are not sufficiently protected via TLS magic (or similar)?

- We generally use varint, but why have varints mixed with 32-bit version
lists? I suggest making the list length 32-bit for easier processing.

- Downgrade - I’m a bit worried about state management and server
redeployments. A server could reject a valid packet because an Initial was
routed to a new server. (Reading further, I see this is addressed). This is
probably a pragmatic solution, but it has an assumption about eventual
global coordination. I suspect something could be done here with tokens or
CID routing, but it is not trivial.

- Security Considerations - perhaps it is worth noting the transport
parameters need additional protection beyond the Initial packet protection?
This follows from TLS, but if TLS is not being used, this can version
negotiation even if other parts of the protocol version is not sensitive to
this in that particular version.

- Greasing 0x?a?a?a?a - I’m not really sure about the point of this.
Especially if we get salted versions in separate proposal.

- It is not immediately obvious if version negotiation can go on and on, or
if it settles after at most one roundtrip one way or the other. This might
depend on the client QUIC version, but that is a fuzzy term in this context.

- Improve discussion of Previously Attempted Version. While the
requirements are readable, the purpose of doing this check is less obvious.
Presumably this deals with downgrade attacks, but more explanation would be
appreciated.

Mikkel


On 4 November 2019 at 21.30.10, David Schinazi ([e-mail])
wrote:

Hi everyone,

>From the recent discussion on multiple PRs, it appears that there might be
a need for downgrade-safe QUIC version negotiation, earlier than we
expected.

EKR and I updated our extension to hopefully suit these needs:
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-schinazi-quic-version-negotiation-02

Comments welcome here or on the GitHub (link in draft).

Thanks,
David