[rtcweb] SRTP and "marketing"

["Richard L. Barnes" <[e-mail]>]

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.

So ISTM the "marketing" argument carries with it some serious risks as 
well as some small possible benefit.

--Richard