Subject: WG Review: Better-Than-Nothing Security (btns)

From: IESG Secretary <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 14:14:45 -0500

A new IETF working group has been proposed in the Security Area.
The IESG has not made any determination as yet. The following 
description was submitted, and is provided for informational purposes only.
Please send your comments to the IESG mailing list ([email-masked]) by 
March 16. 

+++

Better-Than-Nothing Security (btns)
===================================

Current Status: Proposed Working Group

DESCRIPTION:

Current Internet Protocol security protocol (IPsec) and Internet Key
Exchange protocol (IKE) present somewhat of an all-or-nothing
alternative; these protocols provide protection from a wide array of
possible threats, but are sometimes not deployed because of the need
for pre-existing credentials. There is significant interest in providing
anonymous keying for IPsec
between two parties who do not have credentials suitable for the
current profile of IKE. This mode would protect against passive
attacks but would be vulnerable to active attacks.
The primary purpose of this working group is to specify
extensions to or profiles of IKE to enable this mode of IPsec.
The goal of this relaxed varient of IPsec is to enable and encourage the use of
network
security where it has been difficult to deploy - notably, to enable
simpler, more rapid deployment.

Two related problems emerged during the discussion of this problem.
First, there is a desire in the KITTEN, RDDP, NFSv4 and potentially otherc
working groups to perform anonymous authentication at the IPsec layer
and later cryptographically bind the IPsec association to application
authentication. The specification of how this binding is performed
for IPsec and the specification of how the binding interact with
application authentication protocols are out of scope for this working
group. However, the interactions between this cryptographic channel
binding and the IPsec PAD will be similar to those for the anonymous
mode with no binding. This working group needs to consider the
channel bindings use case when developing extensions to the PAD and
SPD.

Secondly, BTNS and the channel bindings work both encourage IPsec to
be used to secure higher layer protocols. AS such we need to consider
what information these higher layer protocols need from IPsec.

Two proposals are under discussion for providing anonymous keing for
IPsec: bare RSA keys transported by IKE and self-signed certificates
transported by IKE.

The WG has the following specific goals over three IETF meetings:

a) develop a framework document to describe the motivation and
goals of these infrastructure-free variants of security protocols
in general, and IPsec and IKE in specific

b) develop an applicability statement, characterizing a reasonable
set of threat models with relaxed assumptions suitable for
infrastructure-free use, and describing the limits and conditions
of appropriate use of infrastructure-free variants

c) develop standards-track IKE extensions and/or profiles that
support one or both of the bare RSA keys or self-signed certificates

d) Specify standards-track extensions to the SPD and PAD to
support anonymous keying for IPsec and cryptographic channel bindings
for IPsec

e) Develop an informational document giving advice to IPsec
implementers and higher-level protocol designers on the use of
IPsec in securing higher-level protocols

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