Re: [TLS] About encrypting SNI

[[e-mail] (Martin Rex)]

Russ Housley wrote:
> 
> > I think Rich Salz has outlined very compelling reasons not to support SNI.
> 
> While I might quibble with a detail here or there, I do agree with the
> conclusion.  If you need to protect SNI, then TOR or to a lesser extent
> TLS-in-TLS can be used.

I agree.  If you need TOR, you should use TOR.

Encrypted SNI comes at a huge cost, and could at best provide
a benefit somewhere between completely negligible and absolutely none.

Whether the service provider uses multiple services on a host at
all, is up to the service provider.

What name the service provider chooses is up to the service provider.

Whether the content of the individual hosts is (close to) 100%
distinguishable by its traffic patterns is up to the hosting provider,
the service providers, the nature of their contents and the amount
of (or lack of) cooperation/synchronization among the service providers.


It would be crazy if any of the secret three agencies would spent
a huge amount of protective efforts so that they could refer to
their "secret hideout at 17, umpteen street" under the term
"secret hideout at 17, umpteen street", instead of simply
calling it an office or a laundry, or whatever.


The server name is simply routing information.  And it is not just
load-balancers that may want to be able to use that information
without having to open/terminate/participate the TLS communication,
it's also easier and cleaner for implementations at the endpoint
to do the server-side of TLS extension SNI "outside" of the TLS stack.


-Martin