Subject: [NNTP] RC4 TLS cipher with NNTP

From: Julien ÉLIE <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2015 21:46:52 +0200

Hi all,

The recently published RFC 7465 prohibits the use of RC4 cipher suites: 
  "This document requires that TLS clients and servers never negotiate 
the use of RC4 cipher suites."

Yet, our RFC 4642 about the use of TLS with NNTP states:

    NNTP client and server implementations MUST implement the
    TLS_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_MD5 cipher suite and SHOULD implement the
    TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA cipher suite.  This is
    important, as it assures that any two compliant implementations can
    be configured to interoperate.  All other cipher suites are OPTIONAL.

There is a discrepancy now between these two RFCs.  Shouldn't something 
be done about that?  Interoperability will be broken in NNTP as 
TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA is not mandatory.  Furthermore, that 
chipher suite may also become unsecure one day...

-- 
Julien ÉLIE

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