Re: [saag] draft-mm-wg-effect-encrypt-03

[Stephen Farrell <[e-mail]>]

Hi Al,

On 16/10/16 18:19, MORTON, ALFRED C (AL) wrote:
> 
> Clearly, changes in current management practices will be needed,
> and that process could be more efficient with constructive input
> from all involved. Understanding the many gaps is the first step,
> and IMO, what this memo is about.  No arguing for solutions,
> MITM or otherwise.

I agree. Figuring out what solutions are needed for n/w
management given the fact of much more ciphertext is work for
another day and for other documents and WGs.

I think what makes this tricky is that people understandably
tend to mix up current solutions and requirements, e.g. it is
natural enough (but wrong) to think that because I do X today
that that implies doing X is required (and hence language like
"valuable" etc.).

We directly saw that in the recent TLS WG discussion of RSA key
transport, which was kicked off by (I think) the same set of
folks. In the end the TLS WG chairs saw a very clear consensus
to stick with PFS and to not add back RSA key transport to
TLS1.3, despite RSA key transport being a "feature" on which
it appears some enterprise networks still seem to depend for
some forms of "attacking"/deciphering traffic to/from their own
TLS servers.

I think another related thing we need to be careful about here
are claims of utility for features where there is little or no
(at least public) evidence but only assertion. For example, many
of the claims I hear about the effectiveness of scanning outbound
traffic seem dubious to me, so we'll want to try find evidence
to backup claims along those lines too if we want this document
to be of most use later on. (Or to qualify such things as being
e.g. "current practices for which there isn't such good evidence"
or something.)

Buy hey, that's why you get all those big bucks for being such
good document editors/authors I guess:-)

Cheers,
S.