Re: [secdir] Secdir review of draft-ietf-sidr-res-certs

Sam Hartman <hartmans-ietf@mit.edu> Thu, 10 March 2011 19:06 UTC

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From: Sam Hartman <hartmans-ietf@mit.edu>
To: Paul Hoffman <paul.hoffman@vpnc.org>
References: <tslhbbag9m1.fsf@mit.edu> <4D791B26.8020001@vpnc.org>
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2011 14:07:31 -0500
In-Reply-To: <4D791B26.8020001@vpnc.org> (Paul Hoffman's message of "Thu, 10 Mar 2011 10:40:38 -0800")
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Cc: draft-ietf-sidr-res-certs@tools.ietf.org, Sam Hartman <hartmans-ietf@mit.edu>, ietf@ietf.org, secdir@ietf.org
Subject: Re: [secdir] Secdir review of draft-ietf-sidr-res-certs
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>>>>> "Paul" == Paul Hoffman <paul.hoffman@vpnc.org> writes:

    Paul> On 3/10/11 9:37 AM, Sam Hartman wrote:
    >> The document also requires that relying parties reject
    >> certificates that include unknown extensions. The rationale
    >> explained in section 8 is that it is undesirable to have a
    >> situation where if an RP implemented more extensions it would
    >> reject certificates that a more minimal RP would accept.  In
    >> other words the profile picks security and minimalism over
    >> extensibility.

    Paul> This statement is too narrow, and it causes your analysis to
    Paul> come to a too narrow conclusion. The profile picks security
    Paul> and minimalism over extensibility *of this profile only*. If a
    Paul> flaw is later found that requires an extension, that extension
    Paul> will be written up in a standards-track document that will
    Paul> obsolete this profile. An implementation that conforms to that
    Paul> new profile will use the extension. Thus, errors can be
    Paul> corrected with new profiles, and the RPKI will have multiple
    Paul> profiles running on it, just as the Internet has multiple
    Paul> versions of some protocols running on it.


Paul, that's a great argument for why it's OK to prohibit issuing
certificates with new extensions in this profile.
We absolutely can change CA behavior with a new profile.

However, I don't think your argument makes sense for RP behavior.
Under this profile, if an RP is presented with a certificate issued
under a new RPKI profile, it will reject that certificate.

So, it sounds a lot like you'd need to upgrade all the RPs that might
need to rely on a particular resource certificate before  you could
issue that certificate under a new profile.
Given that resource certificates can be used by a lot of RPs--for
example anyone who needs to verify origins of a route presumably--that's
a long wait.
I think that's unjustified.

One of us is clearly missing something. I would be happy if it's me.