Re: [TLS] TLS 1.3 process

[Eric Rescorla <[e-mail]>]

On Fri, Mar 28, 2014 at 7:40 AM, Nikos Mavrogiannopoulos <[e-mail]>wrote:

> On Fri, 2014-03-28 at 10:12 -0400, Salz, Rich wrote:
> > > The TLS WG charter is pretty clear that the intention isn't to design
> a completely new protocol but rather to revise TLS,
> > > and specifically to "place a priority in minimizing gratuitous changes
> to TLS."
> > +1.
> >
> > It seems to me that there are almost three viewpoints within this WG.
>  With the hope that I'm equally unfair to everyone, I'd summarize them like
> this:
> >       - Update to modern crypto knowledge to fix bugs, and some modern
> features and be done
> >       - Make big changes to fix serious problems
> >       - Start over from a clean sheet; "I don't know what it will be,
> but we'll call it TLS."
> > I put myself in the first group (except for SNI encryption, which will
> get a separate post :), could be convinced to support something from the
> second once it's written down, and am probably not qualified to evaluate
> anything from the third group (few people are). Interestingly, barring
> divine intervention, the above list is probably in order of length of time
> needed, as well. That would seem to indicate that there's room for all
> three efforts here.
>
> This is not my impression of the discussions and the meetings. Eric in
> the last meetings has presented a list of changes to the protocol that
> really exceeds the "Update to modern crypto knowledge to fix bugs, and
> some modern features and be done", (whatever that means).
>
> So my understanding is that there will be big changes (e.g., reducing
> handshake messages, redesign of handshake to encrypt everything) to fix
> serious and not serious problems (e.g., reducing the round-trips),


Yes, I think the changes to the handshake we have been discussing
probably would fall under #2 in Rich's taxonomy.



> and
> the question is whether to do it:
> 1. within the working group (which is stated to have no crypto
> expertise).
> 2. by using external expertise.


I actually don't think think this is the question, since IETF work is
done in WGs and we would reach out (and are reaching out) for
external expertise in any case.

-Ekr