Subject: I-D ACTION:draft-leach-digest-sasl-00.txt (fwd)

From: Chris Newman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1998 18:21:12 -0700 (PDT)

I'd like to ask people on the list to take a careful look at this internet
draft.

One of the nastier problems the IETF has faced is the choice of
"mandatory-to-implement" authentication mechanism given that unencrypted
clear-text passwords are no longer permitted (for good reason).

I believe this is a better choice than CRAM-MD5.  The main reason is that
this brings HTTP into the set of protocols which can share the same
mandatory-to-implement mechanism.  There is also an attack against
CRAM-MD5 (the password can be easily recovered if the client is tricked
into connecting to a spoof server) which is a major concern for some
implementors.  It also adds integrity protection. 

This mechanism is crufty due to the desire to keep it backwards compatible
with the HTTP digest draft.  But I think the benefit outweighs the cruft
(and the source code necessary to work around the nastiest cruft is
included).

Please take the time to read this over carefully.  I consider it extremely
important.

If we get a sense of rough concensus for this mechanism, the following
things are likely to happen:
* LDAPv3 will adopt it as mandatory-to-implement
* I will lobby for a recycle of the ACAP spec at proposed standard to
  change from CRAM-MD5 to this mechanism.
* I will lobby for this as mandatory-to-implement in the NNTP AUTH draft.
* Other political stuff moving towards making this an across-the-board
  replacement for unencrypted clear-text.

		- Chris

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 05 Oct 1998 10:10:50 -0400
From: [email-masked]
To: IETF-Announce:  ;
Subject: I-D ACTION:draft-leach-digest-sasl-00.txt

A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts directories.

	Title		: Using Digest Authentication as a SASL Mechanism
	Author(s)	: P. Leach, C. Newman
	Filename	: draft-leach-digest-sasl-00.txt
	Pages		: 20
	Date		: 02-Oct-98
	
       This specification defines how HTTP Digest Authentication [Digest] can
       be used as a SASL [RFC 2222] mechanism for any protocol that has a SASL
       profile. It is intended both as an improvement over CRAM-MD5 [RFC2195]
       and as a convenient way to support a single authentication mechanism for
       web, mail, LDAP, and other protocols.

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