Re: [secdir] draft-ietf-manet-packetbb-sec-08 SecDir review

Donald Eastlake <d3e3e3@gmail.com> Wed, 07 March 2012 15:56 UTC

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From: Donald Eastlake <d3e3e3@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2012 10:50:53 -0500
Message-ID: <CAF4+nEFpnnQyqkY8-B33t-__f0WrW1pK5QML1VMZCZMy3uH-ig@mail.gmail.com>
To: Ulrich Herberg <ulrich@herberg.name>
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Cc: secdir@ietf.org, iesg@ietf.org, draft-ietf-manet-packetbb-sec.all@tools.ietf.org
Subject: Re: [secdir] draft-ietf-manet-packetbb-sec-08 SecDir review
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Thanks, at  quick scan, the changes look good.

Donald
=============================
 Donald E. Eastlake 3rd   +1-508-333-2270 (cell)
 155 Beaver Street, Milford, MA 01757 USA
 d3e3e3@gmail.com


On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 3:31 PM, Ulrich Herberg <ulrich@herberg.name> wrote:
> Dear Donald,
>
> thank you very much for your review of the draft. We have addressed your
> comment about section 8.1 and 9.1 in a new revision which we just submitted.
>
> Best regards
> Ulrich
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 7:53 AM, Donald Eastlake <d3e3e3@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> My apologies for getting this review in late.
>>
>> I have reviewed this document as part of the security directorate's
>> ongoing effort to review all IETF documents being processed by the
>> IESG.  Document editors and WG chairs should treat these comments just
>> like any other last call comments.
>>
>> Overall, I do not have security concerns with this document. See
>> comments below.
>>
>> This document describes "signature" and "time" building blocks for
>> constructing messages/packets as described in RFC 5444. There is
>> actually noticeable overlap with Section 7.1 of RFC 5444, enough that
>> I am inclined to say that this draft should indicate the it Updates
>> 5444.
>>
>> The Security Considerations Section says "...  has the same security
>> considerations as [RFC5444]." In turn, RFC 5444 says "This
>> specification does not describe a protocol; it describes a packet
>> format.  As such, it does not specify any security considerations;
>> these are matters for a protocol using this specification." :-) But,
>> in fact, the Security Considerations Section of 5444 continues with
>> design suggestions for authentication/integrity and confidentiality.
>> Arguably, this draft provides a more detailed syntax with some
>> processing rules for authentication/integrity with signatures
>> extending 5444. But it still defers much to any specific MANET
>> protocol making use of RFC 5444, this draft, and probably additional
>> "building block" drafts or RFCs.
>>
>> It appears that the MANET WG is approaching all this through a series of
>> overlapping documents each of which is of limited content but provides
>> more details. For example, this draft sets up hash function and
>> cryptographic function IANA registries but provides only the identity
>> function as initial content for these registries. Presumably additional
>> documents will request allocations from these registries for other
>> functions. There is nothing inherently wrong with this approach and
>> trying to produce large monolithic documents can have problems. But a
>> swarm of smaller inter-related and partly overlapping documents can be
>> confusing.
>>
>> Section 8.1 and 9.1: These sections provide that when adding a packet
>> or message signature TLV, respectively, any pre-existing packet or
>> messages signature "MUST" be removed, etc., before signature calculation
>> but
>> only "SHOULD" be restored afterwards. I would have guessed that
>> "SHOULD" would be a "MUST". In any case, it might be good to say when
>> you don't need to restore a signature TLV, which I would assume would
>> be if that signature TLV is not needed by the recipient.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Donald
>> =============================
>>  Donald E. Eastlake 3rd   +1-508-333-2270 (cell)
>>  155 Beaver Street, Milford, MA 01757 USA
>>  d3e3e3@gmail.com
>
>