Re: [rtcweb] SRTP and "marketing"

On 03/28/2012 11:15 AM, Richard L. Barnes wrote:
> I didn't make it to the mic at the meeting today, but I wanted to 
> express one concern about the possibility of making RTCWEB SRTP-only.
>
> Hadriel mentioned the "marketing value" of having always-on 
> encryption, this idea that only supporting SRTP will make RTCWEB look 
> like something secure and trustworthy.  I'm concerned that this might 
> not be the case, and in fact that being SRTP-only might effectively be 
> an over-promise, in light of the fact the absence of universal 
> authentication.
>
> Hadriel noted that the competitors to this technology are Skype and 
> Flash, and it's worth considering the security situation with these 
> technologies, because they kind of bracket RTCWEB.  With Skype 
> (assuming they've designed it properly), there is actually a universal 
> authentication, under a single authority.  So you really do know that 
> you're talking to whatever Skype ID you intend to, and nobody else. 
> With Flash, well, does anyone expect it to be secure anyway?
>
> What I'm concerned about in the RTCWEB context is that without a 
> universal authentication/identity infrastructure, we will end up 
> *promising* a secure call, but not *delivering* it.  I haven't done 
> the analysis, but it does not seem implausible to me that 
> FireSheep-like vulnerabilities are lurking here.
If there are, we need to close them before we ship the specs.
Given reasonable practices (such as using only HTTPS for loading the 
pages and JS libraries), if we can't deliver security (against known 
attacks), we shouldn't ship the spec.
>
> So ISTM the "marketing" argument carries with it some serious risks as 
> well as some small possible benefit.
Only if we don't deliver.
>
> --Richard
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