Re: [TLS] Analysis of Interop scenarios TLS extension RI w/MCSV

[Nelson B Bolyard <[e-mail]>]

On 2009-12-11 06:58 PST, Martin Rex wrote:
> Nelson B Bolyard wrote:
>>> Keeping an old version of a specification around in a MUCH
>>> MORE promentiently fashion for 9 years tells a lot about what
>>> Netscape thought of the draft-302.txt document.
>> It's not "much more prominent".  It's merely HTML.  Prettier, perhaps.
> 
> 
> Let's see:
> 
> The following URL says "SPEC":
> http://web.archive.org/web/20050207004652/wp.netscape.com/eng/ssl3/3-SPEC.HTM
> 
> This URL says "Draft":
> http://web.archive.org/web/20050206122938/wp.netscape.com/eng/ssl3/draft302.txt
> 
> and includes an _explicit_ expiration of May 1997.

Yes, all the drafts expired, including the one that says "spec".

> And concerning extensibility of SSLv3, here's a statement
> from Tom Weinstein, listed in the Authors section of the
> Nov 18th, 1996 draft as a Netscape employee from
> 10-Oct-1996:
> 
> http://www.imc.org/ietf-tls/mail-archive/msg00325.html
> 
>   The lack of a general extension mechanism in SSL v3 is a feature, not a
>   bug.  This is a security protocol, and so susceptibility to analysis is
>   a good thing.  Simplicity and rigidity are features here.  SSL does
>   provide for forwards compatibility by allowing version negotiation and
>   protection from version rollback attacks.
> 
>   -Tom Weinstein, Netscape, 10-Oct-1996, Co-Author of draft302.txt

Tom and I shared a cubicle.  His brother Jeff sat in the next cubicle over.
One of my first mistakes in working on NSS's SSL code was changing the code
for handling received client hellos to require that the length of the
message be exact, with no extra.  Tom caught this mistake in his review of
my patch.  That was one of my first lessons learned in working on SSL in
1997.

> So as far as Netscape's SSLv3 is concerned it didn't not contain
> extensibility.

In your opinion.  If you wish, you may continue to try to get the last word
in on this subject, but I think the group decision will not be based on
who gets the last word.

>> It amuses me that you tell me what Netscape did and didn't do with those
>> pages, because *I* was the Netscape employee who maintained that section
>> of the web site from 1998-2005, beginning when I implemented TLS 1.0
>> in Netscape's NSS.
> 
> You could have removed the explicit expiration notice on draft302.txt
> and you could have renamed it to "3.0 final SPEC", you could have
> removed the version that you condered outdated--or at least clearly
> marked it as outdated _in_the_document_ if that was what you or
> Netscape intended it to be.

I consciously chose to make NO changes at all to any of those documents,
lest anyone accuse Netscape of continuing to try to revise the SSL 3.0
specification rather than (or in parallel with) adopting the TLS 1.0
specification.