[secdir] Secdir review of draft-ietf-idnabis-bidi
Sam Hartman <hartmans-ietf@mit.edu> Tue, 13 October 2009 18:47 UTC
Return-Path: <hartmans@mit.edu>
X-Original-To: secdir@core3.amsl.com
Delivered-To: secdir@core3.amsl.com
Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by core3.amsl.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9D93F28C22B; Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:47:06 -0700 (PDT)
X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at amsl.com
X-Spam-Flag: NO
X-Spam-Score: 0.242
X-Spam-Level:
X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.242 tagged_above=-999 required=5 tests=[AWL=0.093, BAYES_40=-0.185, IP_NOT_FRIENDLY=0.334]
Received: from mail.ietf.org ([64.170.98.32]) by localhost (core3.amsl.com [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id ofLnkVBCdznc; Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:47:05 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from mail.suchdamage.org (permutation-city.suchdamage.org [69.25.196.28]) by core3.amsl.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id B05613A657C; Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:47:05 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from carter-zimmerman.suchdamage.org (carter-zimmerman.suchdamage.org [69.25.196.178]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client CN "laptop", Issuer "laptop" (not verified)) by mail.suchdamage.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 9416D2045D; Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:47:02 -0400 (EDT)
Received: by carter-zimmerman.suchdamage.org (Postfix, from userid 8042) id 7FD69413F; Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:46:59 -0400 (EDT)
To: draft-ietf-idnabis-bidi@tools.ietf.org, iesg@ietf.org, secdir@ietf.org, idnabis-chairs@tools.ietf.org
From: Sam Hartman <hartmans-ietf@mit.edu>
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:46:59 -0400
Message-ID: <tslk4yzku70.fsf@mit.edu>
User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.2 (gnu/linux)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Subject: [secdir] Secdir review of draft-ietf-idnabis-bidi
X-BeenThere: secdir@ietf.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9
Precedence: list
List-Id: Security Area Directorate <secdir.ietf.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/secdir>, <mailto:secdir-request@ietf.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/secdir>
List-Post: <mailto:secdir@ietf.org>
List-Help: <mailto:secdir-request@ietf.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/secdir>, <mailto:secdir-request@ietf.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:47:06 -0000
I have reviewed this document as part of the security directorate's ongoing effort to review all IETF documents being processed by the IESG. These comments were written primarily for the benefit of the security area directors. Document editors and WG chairs should treat these comments just like any other last call comments. Feel free to forward to any appropriate forum. This document describes a new rule for handling bidirectional attributes of Unicode characters and the bidirectional text wrapping algorithm. I am not qualified to evaluate the security implications of this draft: I do not understand all the implications, and recommend that the security ADs take a close look. The draft is well written. Even given my limited information on the subject, I found the draft relatively clear--or, at least, clear enough that I understood some of my gaps. There is one major deficiency in the security considerations section. The major attack against naming systems is incorrect mappings; in the case of DNS mappings used by humans this broadly falls into the category of phishing or other cases where humans are confused into thinking they have accessed a desired resource but in fact have accessed some other resource.. Section 3 discusses several requirements that could not be met and several confusing situations. However the security considerations section does not discuss the security implications of this, or even discuss phishing/confusing names at all. I'll give the editors some slack here: I have no idea what to write either. However it seems like we should write something. I think advice from the security ADs on what level of detail would be desired in the security considerations section of this document would be in order. I found section 3 particularly useful. I think it is important than someone who understands this better than I look at the attacks that are enabled by the requirements that were considered and rejected to understand how serious they are. All in all, this is a great document.
- [secdir] Secdir review of draft-ietf-idnabis-bidi Sam Hartman
- [secdir] Secdir review of draft-ietf-idnabis-defs Paul Hoffman