Re: [secdir] New Routing Area Security Design Team

["Russ White" <[e-mail]>]

> - The fact that you can intentionally mis-represent the path an UPDATE
> traverses either accidentally as part of normal prepending operations or
> maliciously in an attempt to cause traffic to be misrouted. bgpsec was crafted
> to address this issue in conjunction with the RPKI.

And this is where we get into trouble -- because, IMHO. BGPSEC, beyond being undeployable, either fails to provide meaningful security and/or makes the problem worse. This isn't just a crypto problem, this is a structural problem with the solution itself. The IETF's focus on BGPSEC as "the only right solution" has caused many in the community to stop looking to the IETF for leadership in solving this problem. At least some folks in the community are looking at other solutions to this problem in a way that intentionally _avoids_ any sort of "deep" interaction with the IETF because of the rut the IETF is in.

Until the IETF starts listening to folks beyond BGPSEC supporters, and rethinks what needs to be solved, the IETF will continue to play essentially no role in moving any solution for this problem forward. Hint: ensuring the "proper operation of BGP" is not a good starting point. 

> What is an open issue is the one that originally brought Stewart to
> saag: The MPLS protocols are in need of a transport security upgrade.
> As part of that headache, we want to try to get boilerplate and process in
> place so that the next time someone needs to either invent a new protocol or
> upgrade an existing one, we stop making routing experts who are security
> n00bs go through a dance they don't know the steps to.

Correct -- this is the problem this design team is attempting to address. It is not that routing folk don't think the BGP problem isn't a problem, it is that the IETF is not a useful place for discussing this problem. Perhaps it will be in the future, but right now there is no hope of having a reasoned, reasonable, and productive discussion on this topic.

😊

Russ