Re: [TLS] Working Group Last Call for draft-ietf-tls-tls13-18

[Yoav Nir <[e-mail]>]

> On 3 Nov 2016, at 20:20, Martin Rex <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Yoav Nir wrote:
>> 
>> On 3 Nov 2016, at 16:31, Martin Rex <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Since then, I've seen exactly ZERO rationale why the cleartext contenttype,
>>> which has existed through SSLv3->TLSv1.2 would be a problem.  With the
>>> removal of renegotiation from TLSv1.3, it is even less of a problem to
>>> keep the contenttype in the clear.
>> 
>> Here?s some to get this to somewhat >0:
>> 
>> Most TLS 1.2 connections will have a few handshake records,
>> followed by a couple of CCS records followed by a whole bunch of
>> application records, followed possibly by a single Alert.
>> 
>> You only see more handshake records in two cases:
>>   1. The client decided to re-negotiate. That is exceedingly rare.
>>   2. The server decided a renegotiation is needed
>>      so it sent a HelloRequest followed by a handshake.
>> 
>> With visible content type, you can tell these two flows apart.
> 
> (a) so what?  for those interested, one can tell such flows appart
>     pretty reliably by traffic analysis.  So there is exactly ZERO
>     protection against bad guys, while breaking the good guys.

There is if you pad the records to the size of application records.

> (b) but TLSv1.2 remains unchanged, and this flow does not seem to
>     exist in TLSv1.3, since renegotiation no longer exists in TLSv1.3.

Re-negoatiation doesn’t, but post-handshake client authentication does:
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-tls-tls13-18#section-4.5.2 <https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-tls-tls13-18#section-4.5.2>

>     -- so why would we need a backwards-incompatible change in a
>     protocol that protects something that no longer exists,
>     but which severely breaks existing middleware, making it
>     impossible to drop-in replace a TLSv1.2 implementation with
>     a TLSv1.3 implementation that has this backwards-incompatibility.

Can you elaborate on that middleware?

Yoav