Re: [xmpp] comments on draft-miller-xmpp-e2e-06

[Carl Wallace <[e-mail]>]

On 3/7/14, 6:23 AM, "Matt Miller" <[e-mail]> wrote:

>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Hash: SHA512
>
>Thank you very much for the feedback!
>
>I'll incorporate your suggestions as soon as I can.
>
>On 3/6/14, 3:12 PM, Carl Wallace wrote:
>> Section 1 - This may be in the reqs draft, but seems worth stating
>> here that some end points for a given recipient may share keys,
>> some may use different keys, some may have no keys and some may not
>> support encryption or signature verification at all.
>> 
>
>We did discuss reviving the e2e-reqs draft in the WG session on
>Tuesday, but it would be important to include this.

It¹s also worth noting the sender may have multiple end points with the
same properties.  If the same SMK were used in replies, it creates kind of
a odd scenario where both parties could be providing the SMK for the
asking.  

>
>> Section 3 - What should the sender do if some end points for a
>> recipient indicate lack of support for encryption?  Are error
>> responses helpful independent of confirmation that some end points
>> support encryption?  Is the intent for messages to only be sent to
>> end points that advertise support?
>
>There is little (read: nothing) that can be said on what existing
>"legacy" end-points ought to do.  I tried to say something on what
>existing clients already do, to the best of my knowledge.  Many (most)
>drop anything they don't understand, so getting errors could very well
>be impossible unless the applications were specifically updated to
>"anti-support" this specification.  It's also possible I'm missing the
>point here, too (-:
>
>The intention is not for the sending end-point to only send to other
>supporting end-points.  Indeed, I want this to be compatible with
>[CARBONS] and [MUC] where the possible.  To that end, most clients try
>to do something if there is a body, and this document could suggest
>that sending end-points include an appropriate generic "this message
>is protected" body.

I¹ve not yet looked, but I had wondered if it would be possible to define
the signature format so a non-supporting client could still display the
text (similar to cleartext email vs opaque).  This probably brings a can
of canonicalization worms though.

>
>> 
>> - Why not include an end point's key in its info results and enable
>> return of the encrypted SMK (or even CEK) with the encrypted
>> payload (to save a round trip).  Given a single message could
>> trigger a number of requests for the SMK, the option to include the
>> encrypted CEK in the payload may be worthwhile.  Including the
>> encrypted CEK would help with storage too.
>
>The encrypted CEK is included in each message with -06.

I made this error a couple of times.  What I meant was encrypted CEK for a
key already held by the end point, to avoid to the need for a round trip
to get the SMK, to remove the online requirement for the sender at
recipient reading time and to simplify future use of stored encrypted
messages.  The CEK could also be encrypted under the SMK to bootstrap
unknown end points.

>
>Including an encrypted SMK is a possibility, although I start to worry
>about the size of the overall stanza.  If it's absolutely known that
>the message will be delivered to a single end-point it shouldn't get
>too large, but I am assuming that servers will start multiplexing chat
>messages (a la [CARBONS]) which means the benefits of including the
>encrypted SMK are unrealized if only there's only a single instance of
>the encrypted SMK; including multiple SMKs can be very problematic
>(e.g., many server deployments reject very large stanzas).

Do you know what the threshold is?

>
>> 
>> 
>> - Why is the SID required to be unique for a {sender, recipient,
>> SMK} tuple?  This would allow for the same SID to be used to name
>> every SMK used with a recipient.  Suggest unique for each recipient
>> (i.e., SMK's are uniquely identified by recipient+SID for a given
>> sender).
>> 
>
>I'm not sure what you're trying to say here (it could be due to me
>responding on the last day of an IETF meeting).  Can you provide an
>example of what your concern here is?

Assume a sender has used two SMKs while communicating with a given
recipient: sender+recipient+SMK1 and sender+recipient+SMK2.  The current
text requires the SID to be unique "for a given (sender, recipient, SMK)
tuple².  That allows for the same SID to be used for either SMK1 or SMK2.
I am suggesting the SID should be unique for each recipient, from a
sender¹s perspective.

>
>> - Discuss how multiple recipients are handled
>
>That is a very good point.  There is some text there, but it is fairly
>weak.  I was considering a form of ASCII sequence diagram of the
>general flow -- would that better help to explain things?

That would help.

>
>> 
>> - s/optionallly/optionally
>> 
>
>Fixed in working copy.
>
>> - It would be nice to have a summary of new state information the
>> sender and recipient are required to manage (like SMKs) and
>> significant new operations (like authorization of key requests
>> where a given recipient may use a number of different public keys)
>
>That is a very good suggestion.  Do you think you could provide some
>text to get it started?

Sure.  Will try to send something next week.

>
>> 
>> - Should include an example of a reply to an encrypted message.
>> Should/must the same SMK be used in replies?
>> 
>
>That is not a bad idea.  I'll look into it.
>
>> - Is there any reason pre-placed SMK values cannot be used instead
>> of SMK values retrieved automatically from the sender?
>> 
>
>Is there any additional concern here beyond the point a few above?

No, just looking for another place to not use of a key already know to the
receiver.  

>
>> Section 4 - How is the public key used to verify signatures
>> published to the recipients?  If not included in the payload,
>> should be available a la the SMK.  This would be useful, at a
>> minimum, when the signer uses a certificate from a PKI the
>> recipient trusts.
>> 
>
>These are good points, and it ought to be included.  The JWS structure
>does allow for inclusion of the jwk (or jku, or x5c, or x5t, or x5u)
>which would be the key used to sign the content.  I'll add more
>clarity on this point.
>
>> - s/Playload/payload
>> 
>
>Fixed in working copy.
>
>> - Include some text indicating users MUST be able to determine if
>> a message was authenticated
>> 
>
>That is a good point.
>
>> - Should data be presented to the user when the timestamp is not
>> acceptable?  There are guidelines for invalid signatures, but not
>> for unacceptable timestamps.  Same comment on 3.3.5 too.
>> 
>
>I have been hesitant on dictating what to display to users.  I don't
>want to tie the hands of implementations, and it's rather difficult to
>independently verify that a given implementation complies without some
>sort of officiating body (which we definitely don't want).

I thought these UI notes were more reminders to developers to make sure
user¹s could determine checks had been performed.

>
>> - May want to distinguish between successful authentication vs
>> successful verification
>> 
>
>Noted.
>
>> Section 5 - Should describe how the entity requesting a key gets
>> the SID
>> 
>
>I thought I had said that in here, but I'll clarify it further.
>
>> - Should make it more clear that a new CEK is generated in order
>> to encrypt the SMK, then the CEK is encrypted under the public
>> key.
>> 
>
>You have this reversed: the SMK is used to encrypt the CEK, and the
>recipient's public key is used to encrypt the SMK.  It is completely
>possible that I was not consistent here.

I thought when the SMK is communicated to the end point, it is also
encrypted under a content encryption key (referred to as a CMK in the
text), that is then encrypted using the end point¹s public key.  If that
is correct there are four keys at work: the CEK for the stanza (CEK1), the
SMK to encrypt the CEK, the CEK to encrypt the SMK (CEK2) and the
recipient¹s public key to encrypt CEK2.

>
>> Section 9 - The requirement for the sender to be online would seem
>> like sufficient grounds for including encrypted CEKs in the
>> payload.
>> 
>
>Encrypted CEKs are in the payload in -06.

I tried to clarify in a reply comment above.  This applies to the next few
comments too.  Read ³encrypted CEKs² are ³CEKs encrypted using a key
already possessed by the recipient².  I think I was consistent in misusing
the term ³encrypted CEKs² in my comments in this way, and introduced the
CEK term in my comments where it does not appear in the draft:-)


>
>> Section 11 - Offline storage may be another reason to include
>> encrypted CEKs in a payload.  Perhaps the solution should be to
>> encrypt for each of a recipient's known keys plus an SMK that could
>> be used by end points using a different,
>> not-yet-known-to-the-sender key.
>> 
>
>You mean encrypted SMKs here.
>
>One idea that had been discussed outside the meeting was to try and
>use [PEP] as a way to do this, but we didn't spend a lot of time
>thinking about the mechanics and implications here.
>
>
>> - Need to address authorization for SMK release.
>> 
>
>I have pretty much hand-waved over this part.  One idea that came to
>light this week was to provide fingerprints for the recipients' public
>keys, somehow.  Suggestions for improvements are welcome.
>
>> - Include some guidance on SMK lifetime.
>
>There is *some* guidance in section 11.2, but I admit it is rather
>vague.  Could you provide more specific suggestions?

As above, will try to send some text next week.

>
>
>- -- 
>- - m&m
>
>Matt Miller < [e-mail] >
>Cisco Systems, Inc.
>
>[CARBONS] XEP-0280: Message Carbons <
>http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0280.html >
>[MUC] XEP-0045: Multi-User Chat <
>http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0045.html >
>[PEP] XEP-0163: Personal Eventing Protocol <
>http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0163.html >
>
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>Version: GnuPG/MacGPG2 v2.0.22 (Darwin)
>Comment: GPGTools - https://gpgtools.org
>Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/
>
>iQEcBAEBCgAGBQJTGawgAAoJEDWi+S0W7cO1Jo4H/R8AvTt1WBMIwvBD1U8JNBaP
>M88uMewtHGoQ/NbizCPnNS8DTMQyMxs/z6w66WDBnNNuCFhjqgh5G4X7X9elnFzI
>VezIMKsr5Jc6dlN/9jRgWdQtEuqqmuGKfMHaAoNdqph5pP+zWSx5yhMbcb/wN7Uu
>6+JdY4GB9Yz3xBrwQTBZnkRqqTKKL34/WoX42j9Vy2JgFLyRMu3xoW6xg99622Ol
>VJxXRs7X9uERB0Dn8xTW2NTnRIN82g4WZuuaJLOkGDFQaienaBwQTHhogjaHFcNv
>aTCnQhipI8Io4gLdT3uFzn84oZDYhBCSGyclegAXesthI9gnO3I671YUfTJl9xo=
>=G0xx
>-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----