Re: [TLS] Next steps for draft-agl-tls-padding

On Apr 7, 2014 10:21 AM, "Martin Thomson" <martin.thomson@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6 April 2014 17:21, Andrey Jivsov <crypto@brainhub.org> wrote:
> > The spec would benefit from a suggestion about what the recommended use
of
> > the padding extension is (i.e. to which size one should pad).
>
>
> This has been discussed extensively, here and elsewhere.  See for
> instance, http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/tls/current/msg10423.html
> or https://www.imperialviolet.org/2013/10/07/f5update.html or
> https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=315828 .
>
> I expect that the draft authors are being sensitive to the fact there
> is no need to create a more public, permanent record of what is a
> transient problem.

I read the F5 explaination. It's worth keeping it around so in the future,
when tempted to upgrade a binary protocol we ask the guy proposing the
upgrade how to distinguish old and new.

In particular,  tossing it down the memory hole out of misguided
professional courtesy would probably mean making the same mistake in the
future.

In particular treating this extension's proper use as something to be
passed on by word of mouth hurts new implementors who don't know the magic
number. Embarrassment for F5 is nowhere near as serious.

Sincerely,
Watson Ladd
>
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