[tcpm] Comments on draft-ietf-tcpm-icmp-attacks-04.txt

I volunteered to review this I-D in the TCPM meeting in MPLS.

I'd like to make the following observations, and explore whether these 
are issues:

* It was interesting to read the issues presented in the I-D. The I-D is 
mainly documentation of algorithms and current practice. If published, 
this seems like an informational document - I can not determine whether 
this is needed, and whether the material could already be covered by 
other documentation.

* One section of the document (6) describes issues with Source-Quench, 
however this is not a credible issue - it has long been known that 
Source-Quench is not of value. I think this section could safely be 
omitted, reduced or combined with earlier sections to provide more 
rationale for the main part of the I-D.

* The main part of the document is about PMTUD vulnerabilities to ICMP 
attacks and some deployed countermeasures. In my opinion, this 
discussion should be set against the framework defined by the IETF 
standards-track  "Packetization Layer Path MTU Discovery", RFC 4821, 
March 2007. This is not currently mentioned, which I find very 
confusing. I'd suggest that if the document is to be published as a 
useful output of the transport area it must compare the non-ICMP methods 
to those in RFC 4821.

* Appendix A concludes with an interpretation of the meaning of several 
RFCs. If this is the result of an IETF WG consensus call, this needs to 
be made clear and more effort needs to be made to determine the correct 
advice. If this is the editor's own view, then it should be omitted from 
a working group draft.

* Finally, I do not see a detailed discussion of ICMP issues in general 
as the title suggests, but more of a focus on PMTUD attacks. A change to 
the title and abstract would help attract the right people to read this 
and better reflect the actual content.

I will separately send some comments on the document itself to the list, 
but have decided to postpone the final stage of the review until I hear 
more about the relationship to PLPMTUD, since this may require some 
reworking of the document. It may be that there has been discussion on 
this topic before, if so please let me know.

Best wishes,

Gorry
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