Subject: Re: [Asrg] DNS over SCTP

From: Alessandro Vesely <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 09:29:06 +0200

AJ Jaghori wrote:
> This is a common misconception.  DNS over SCTP will not solve 90% of the 
> problems!

Why?

Attackers are able to guess what DNS queries an SMTP server would put 
as a consequence of a client connection. Even after the Kaminsky fix, 
that leaves room for brute force attacks. If queries were run over 
TCP, the additional requirement to hijack a TCP connection would 
reduce the probabilities enough, even for today's botnets. Thus, using 
TCP would solve those security issues. (Is that 90%?) It would 
introduce some inefficiency, though. (More than DNSSEC?)

SCTP provides for several streams over a single connection, streams 
are asynchronous with one another like UDP packets, but are reliably 
connected and secured like TCP streams. With decent keep-alive 
directives, that would allow a client to be connected with a pool of 
relevant resolvers, thereby avoiding the inefficiencies that TCP would 
introduce.

> On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 10:16 AM, Alessandro Vesely <[email-masked] 
> <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
> 
>     Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
> 
>        It seems that DNS over SCTP would solve 90% of the problems with 10%
>        of the efforts and resources required to implement DNSSEC. However,
>        I hear more often about the latter than the former. How come?
> 
> 
>    I've read this message via the IETF general mailing list and so I
>    missed the beginning. In what way can you compare DNSSEC (which
>    provides object security) and SCTP or TCP (which provide a better
>    channel security for DNS)?
> 
> 
> The discussion was about how to get rid of the threats illustrated,
> e.g., in Kaminsky, D.: "It’s the end of the cache as we know it."
> In: Black Hat conference (2008). Online at http://www.doxpara.com/DMK_BO2K8.ppt