Re: [TLS] Security concerns around co-locating TLS and non-secure on same port (WGLC: draft-ietf-tsvwg-iana-ports-08)

["t.petch" <[e-mail]>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael D'Errico" <[e-mail]>
To: "t.petch" <[e-mail]>
Cc: <[e-mail]>
Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 2010 6:02 PM
> t.petch wrote:
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Michael D'Errico" <[e-mail]>
> >
> > Here's a radical idea for IANA -- STOP REGISTERING UNENCRYPTED PROTOCOLS!
> >
> > <tp>
> >
> > Michael
> >
> > Here's a better idea; stop registering encrypted protocols; they are
expensive
> > and damaging
> > and practically noone needs them, just a few bankers, spies and
governments:-)
>
> Since you put a smiley at the end, it seems you're kidding, but just to be
> clear....
>
>    - the most important requirement for protocols is integrity; I don't
>      know how to achieve that without TLS.
>
>    - personally I also want privacy; not because I'm doing anything wrong,
>      but because it's-none-of-your-business what I buy online and what I
>      discuss with people through email, etc.  I don't know how to achieve
>      this without encryption, thus TLS is an important tool.

Michael

Yes there was a smiley but there is also a serious point.

I recently was involved in syslog over TLS and the RFC there explicitly calls it
out.  Diagnostic messages are good for diagnosing problems and so should be sent
in the clear unless there is a reason to do otherwise (eg relating to security
breaches, password misuse etc) and this is a general truth in operations (SNMP
etc).  Yes, I must have integrity, but privacy can be a real pain, stopping the
determination of problems.

And while my Pentium PC, and a Google teraflop server, can cope with most things
(S/MIME as used by our ADs with Apples being the exception for me), network
devices may be low-powered, more like an 8086 than a Pentium, so the cost of
processing encryption can be significant.

And, as a more general truth, the customers I work with are, for the most part,
obsessed with encryption and think that, with that in place, all their security
problems are solved.  In that regard, the widespread use of phishing is
excellent news, because it is finally opening their eyes, in a way I have not
been able to, that unless you have authentication, you are a sucker for
everything.

Just another point of view,

Tom Petch

>    - what do you mean by expensive?  Google has published research results
>      showing that enabling TLS on their services required no more/different
>      hardware than they were using prior to switching on TLS.
>
>    - also you have it backwards -- government should not be the one doing
>      things in secret!
>
> Mike