Subject: WG Review: DANE Authentication for Network Clients Everywhere (dance)

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2021 09:08:18 -0700

A new IETF WG has been proposed in the Security Area. The IESG has not made
any determination yet. The following draft charter was submitted, and is
provided for informational purposes only. Please send your comments to the
IESG mailing list ([email-masked]) by 2021-09-20.

DANE Authentication for Network Clients Everywhere (dance)
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Current status: Proposed WG

Chairs:
  Wes Hardaker <[email-masked]>

Assigned Area Director:
  Roman Danyliw <[email-masked]>

Security Area Directors:
  Benjamin Kaduk <[email-masked]>
  Roman Danyliw <[email-masked]>

Mailing list:
  Address: [email-masked]
  To subscribe: https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dance
  Archive: https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/dance/

Group page: https://datatracker.ietf.org/group/dance/

Charter: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/charter-ietf-dance/

# Objective

The DANE Authentication for Network Clients Everywhere (DANCE) WG seeks to
extend DANE (RFC 6698) to encompass TLS client authentication using
certificates or Raw Public Keys (RPK).

# Problem Statement

The process of establishing trust in public-key-authenticated identity
typically involves the use of a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), and a shared
PKI root of trust between the parties exchanging public keys. A Certification
Authority (CA) is one example of a root of trust for a PKI, which can be then
used for establishing trust in certified public keys.

The DNS namespace, together with DNSSEC, forms the most widely-recognized
namespace and authenticated lookup mechanism on the Internet. DANE built on
this authenticated lookup mechanism to enable public key-based TLS
authentication which is resilient to impersonation, but only for TLS server
identities. However, the DANE WG did not define authentication for TLS client
identities.

In response to the challenges related to ambiguity between identically named
identities issued by different CAs, application owners frequently choose to
onboard client identities to a single private PKI with a limited CA set that
is specific to that vertical. This creates a silo effect where different
parts of large deployments can not communicate. Examples of where DANCE could
be useful includes SMTP transport client authentication, authentication of
DNS authoritative server to server zone file transfers over TLS,
authentication to DNS recursive servers, and Internet of Things (IoT) device
identification.

# Scope of work

DANCE will specify the DANE-enabled TLS client authentication use cases and
an architecture describing the primary components and interaction patterns.

DANCE will define how DNS DANE records will represent client identities for
TLS connections.

DANCE will coordinate with the TLS working group to define any TLS protocol
updates required to support client authentication using DANE.

The DANCE scope of work will be initially limited to just TLS client
authentication. Future work may include using client identifiers for other
tasks including object security, or authenticating to other protocols.

# Deliverables:

* DANCE architecture and use cases (e.g., IoT, SMTP client,
authentication to DNS services) document (9 months)

* DANE client authentication and publication practices (6 months after
architecture)

* A TLS extension to indicate DANE identification capability and the
client's DANE identity name (6 months after architecture)

Milestones:

  Jul 2022 - DANCE architecture and use cases to WGLC

  Jan 2023 - DANE client authentication and publication practice to WGLC

  Jan 2023 - TLS extension to indicate DANE identification capability and the
  client's DANE identity name to WGLC