Subject: [CGA-EXT] Comment draft-ietf-csi-hash-threat-08.txt

From: Roque Gagliano <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 18:33:16 +0100

Hi,

I was starting to review this draft and I realized that most of  Section 3.2
is based in "human readable" information.

In SEND, we are not identifying people but functions in equipments, so I am
not sure I share how the section is written. Moreover, the cert. profile
document particularly requests that names should be "meaningless" in RPKI.
This is to avoid any sort of legal issues.

So, a certificate with a bizarre CN could still be valid for SEND. Please
check this website with valid RPKI certificates: http://rpki.he.net/

All in all, I believe we should not take for granted that the distinguished
name field for either the subject or the issuer of a SEND certificate should
always be human readable.

Regards,

Roque

---

From: Ana Kukec <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 06 Mar 2010 19:06:34 +0100

Hi Roque,

The draft analysis all possible attacks (theoretically possible, and 
possible in practice) and also mentions "if fields *were* 
human-readable...", but puts focus on the SEND real-world scenarios. For 
example, we've mentioned pre-image attacks although they are not 
theoretically possible, but we've of course put focuse on collision 
attacks. Same thing is with the human readable fields.

Anyway, the WGLC was closed on 8th February.

Ana

Roque Gagliano wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I was starting to review this draft and I realized that most of  
> Section 3.2 is based in "human readable" information.
>
> In SEND, we are not identifying people but functions in equipments, so 
> I am not sure I share how the section is written. Moreover, the cert. 
> profile document particularly requests that names should be 
> "meaningless" in RPKI. This is to avoid any sort of legal issues.
>
> So, a certificate with a bizarre CN could still be valid for SEND. 
> Please check this website with valid RPKI certificates: 
> http://rpki.he.net/
>
> All in all, I believe we should not take for granted that the 
> distinguished name field for either the subject or the issuer of a 
> SEND certificate should always be human readable.
>
> Regards,
>
> Roque
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> CGA-EXT mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/cga-ext
>

---

From: Ana Kukec <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 06 Mar 2010 19:29:00 +0100

Roque Gagliano wrote:
>  Moreover, the cert. profile document particularly requests that names 
> should be "meaningless" in RPKI. This is to avoid any sort of legal 
> issues.

Just checked again RPKI cert profile (architecture) draft. There is 
definitely no MUST on not using human readable fields. It's simply that 
RPKI certs are authorization and not authentication certificates, so the 
recommendation is not be descriptive when it comes to identities, but 
rather choose effective names that will make the linkage with the 
existing database records easier.

When analyzing possible attacks, we must consider that there might be 
meaningful identities. Actually, from the attacker's point of view, even 
the identity that easies the linkage with the database might be for some 
reason meaningful and possibly predictable. After all, as long as it is 
not completely random, there is a chance that the attack will take less 
effort then the brute force attack.

Additionally, we can put the identity fields on the side. There are 
other human readable fields -- for example, validity periods.

> SEND certificate should always be human readable.

There is no assumption in the draft that any of identity fields is 
always human readable.

Ana