Subject: Re: Opt-in wg last call

From: Roy Arends <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 23:19:14 +0200 (CEST)

On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, Edward Lewis wrote:

> During the IETF meetings, I was told about "typo" attacks being a threat.
> I'm not sure I've seen them in a message yet though.  If you know what
> these attacks are, the only benefit to reading the rest of this is to make
> sure I've stated the problem accurately.
>
> Before I describe them, my stance is that opt-in makes sense from the point
> of view that it makes transitioning from insecure to secure more natural.
> Mind you, this is just a "warm and fuzzy" feeling, there isn't a real
> technical reason for this.
>
> The typo attacks consist of someone taking advantage of "similar" names.
> E.g., If I want to serve monopoly.int and there is a common mispelling of
> m0n0p0ly.int, someone else could register that name and take advantage of
> client mistakes.
>
> If the alternate spelling is registered and evil is afoot, then there will
> be authorities available to deal with the evil doer.  To find the evil
> doer, one begins with the registration.
>
> If opt-in is in use, then there may be no registration, one less means by
> which to locate the evil doer.
>
> What makes this troublesome is that the victim, in this case monopoly.int,
> is at risk becuase of a policy decision made by some one else (.int).  It
> is not a matter of .int shooting themselves in tht foot, but .int shooting
> one of the legitmate delegations in the leg.
>
> So, it seems that opt-in allows one organization to put another at risk.

Ed, I've heard about these attacks as well, and it indeed resembles what
you wrote, but I don't think they hold sway.

Here's my reasoning:

How could .int shoot monopoly.int in the leg if they (monopoly.int) do not
own m0n0p0ly.int.

What right does .int have to deny registering m0n0p0ly.int,
if it was not previously registered, even if it does remotely resembles
monopoly.int.

If I want to register m0n0p0ly.int, there is no legal way stopping me. I
can even have it signed, without any interference of monopoly.int.

Unless there is going to be some ICANN body in place that decides which
possible names remotely resemble a given name, and why, (DNSO.1), the
argument you gave does not hold.

Roy

--
to unsubscribe send a message to [email-masked] with
the word 'unsubscribe' in a single line as the message text body.
archive: <http://ops.ietf.org/lists/namedroppers/>

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 15:56:52 +0000 (UCT)

> So, it seems that opt-in allows one organization to put another at risk.
	Twas ever thus. A parent can always mess with direct delegations.
	Children (these days) generally have no recourse if the parent
	makes a policy that the child is unable to accomodate. 
	The question might be more interesting if you could claim that
	opt-in allows one organization to place another at risk when
	the relationship between the two organizations is not
	parent/child.
--bill