Re: [RTG-DIR] RtgDir review: draft-ietf-karp-bfd-analysis-04.txt

[manav bhatia <[e-mail]>]

Hi Les,

Thanks for the comments.

>
>
> Minor Issues: I am a little surprised that the use of UTC is emphasized as
> a means of preventing replay attacks. While this is certainly a viable
> solution what has been more commonly used by a number of other protocols is
> reserving a portion of the sequence number for a boot count. In fact this
> is the way that
> http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-bfd-generic-crypto-auth-06.txt  has
> chosen. Yet this document chooses to emphasize UTC encoding.
>
>
>
I am the author of the standards that started using the boot count
initially as a way to preserve the crypto sequence count. I am not a big
fan of UTC and this was suggested as a plausible mechanism that did not
appear to be outright loony (especially when you have increased the seq
space to 64 bits). Let me put it this way - I wouldnt be baying for blood
if the directorate believes that this is a retrogressive step and we need
to snip out that section.

 Nits:
>
>
>
> 1)The affiliation for one of the authors (Manav) is inconsistent in the
> header vs the authors addresses section.
>

Will fix this. For the record, i now work for Ionos Networks.


>
>
> 2)In the Introduction the last sentence of the second paragraph reads:
>
>
>
> "Moving the routing protocols to a stronger
>
>    algorithm while using weaker algorithm for BFD would require the
>
>    attacker to bring down BFD in order to bring down the routing
>
>    protocol. "
>
>  I think what is meant is that if the BFD authentication algorithm is
> weaker than that used by the routing protocols it is more likely to be the
> target of an attack. The phrase "require the attacker..." seems
> inappropriate.
>

Gotcha. Will fix this.


>
>
> 3)Section 3 last sentence of the penultimate paragraph:
>
>
>
> s/reply/replay
>

.. and this.


>
>
> 4)Section 6 Second paragraph second sentence
>
>
>
> s/notion/the notion
>

.. and this as well.

Thanks,

Manav

>
>
> Thanx.
>
>
>
>    Les
>
>
>