Re: [tcpm] Privacy problems of TCP Fast Open

Michael Tuexen <michael.tuexen@lurchi.franken.de> Tue, 21 May 2019 10:18 UTC

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From: Michael Tuexen <michael.tuexen@lurchi.franken.de>
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Date: Tue, 21 May 2019 12:18:48 +0200
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To: sy@informatik.uni-hamburg.de
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Subject: Re: [tcpm] Privacy problems of TCP Fast Open
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> On 21. May 2019, at 09:52, Erik Sy <sy@informatik.uni-hamburg.de> wrote:
> 
> Hi Michael,
> 
> thanks for this question!
> 
> Yes, TFO cookies are bound to the clients (local) IP address. However, a
> client with a static local IP address in a home network will use the
> same TFO cookie independently of it's publicly visible IP address. As a
> result, TFO cookies present an independent tracking mechanism, which
> does not necessarily rely on the client's publicly visible IP address.
How often do the public addresses change? One could extend the TFO API in
a way that the application can request a new cookie by only sending 
a cookie request.
> 
> Returning to your example, onion routing does not necessarily protect
> you against tracking via TFO cookies.
Yepp, that is what I wanted to say. But using TFO in that case doesn't
make much sense.

Best regards
Michael
> 
> Best regards,
> Erik
> 
> On 5/21/19 09:13, Michael Tuexen wrote:
>>> On 20. May 2019, at 23:19, Erik Sy <sy@informatik.uni-hamburg.de> wrote:
>>> 
>>> I think it is important to warn users about the privacy risks of RFC
>>> 7413. For example, Mozilla reacted to the privacy problems of TCP Fast
>>> Open by deprecating this protocol on all it's Firefox branches. In
>>> total, TCP Fast Open has significant issues with respect to user
>>> privacy, performance and deployment on the real-world Internet. From my
>>> point of view, it is about time to deprecate RFC 7413.
>> Hi Eric,
>> 
>> my understanding is that a cookie is specific to a client address, a server
>> address and a server port. So it would make sense for a client to remove
>> entries from the cookie cache on an address change. Assuming that, how
>> does your described host based attacks relate to the server just using
>> the client IP address for tracking? If you are trying to hide you IP-address
>> (like using a TOR browser) you don't want to use TFO, but you are not
>> optimising for small RTTs in that case, so it makes no sense in that case.
>> 
>> Best regards
>> Michael
>>> Regards,
>>> Erik
>>> 
>>> On 5/10/19 14:14, Erik Sy wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Hi everyone,
>>>> 
>>>> TCP Fast Open has significant privacy problems which are not considered
>>>> in RFC 7413.
>>>> For example, this protocol allows a passive network observer to
>>>> correlate connections established by the same client, which protocols
>>>> such as TLS 1.3 and QUIC actively protect against. Furthermore, Fast
>>>> Open cookies present a kernel-based tracking mechanism which is quite
>>>> persistent. Amongst others, they can be used to conduct cross-browser
>>>> tracking on the same operating system.
>>>> For further details please refer to this article:
>>>> https://arxiv.org/pdf/1905.03518.pdf
>>>> 
>>>> I suggest, that the working group takes steps to highlight these privacy
>>>> problems of RFC 7413.
>>>> 
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Erik
>>>> 
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