Re: Clarification of my remarks about Netscape

["Kipp E.B. Hickman" <kipp@warp.mcom.com>]

On Dec 12,  5:42pm, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
> Subject: Re: Clarification of my remarks about Netscape
>
> "Kipp E.B. Hickman" says:
> > First of all, lets start with "not wanting to secure the transport
> > layer". Right now email, passwords, etc. can be read off of the
> > internet in the clear providing no measure of privacy at all. I
> > believe the SSL protocol solves this problem.
>
> First of all, Mr. Hickman, you might notice that I said that
> encryption is needed for privacy. However, transport layer security is
> far from sufficient for the web because it DOES NOT SECURE THE
> DOCUMENTS. The fact that you mention email and SSL in the same
> paragraph demonstrates an ignorance of this topic. Because email is
> store and forward transport layer encryption mechanisms are worthless
> -- they only say that no one could read the last hop and in no way do
> they secure the documents themselves. Thats why PEM was
> developed. There is now a merger of PEM and MIME that is soon going to
> be a proposed internet standard following the last IETF meeting.

Clearly you and I disagree on a fundamental point. Which is more important?
Securing the document or securing the transport of the document. I believe that
today's problem for commerce is securing the transport. Solving this currently
widespread problem makes the Internet a friendlier place for commerce. It
allows sensitive information to be transported privately. Protecting against
forgery is the next logical step.

> Indeed, Mr Hickman, had you and your friends at Netscape been paying
> attention instead of rolling your own, you might have noticed that
> IPSP prototypes are around TODAY and that transport layer mechanisms
> are going to become rapidly obsolete for securing the communications
> themselves. You can find a version of swIPe, which is not quite IPSP
> but is fairly similar (and which is being hacked on so that it will
> conform) on ftp.csua.berkeley.edu; its even modloadable on Suns. Thats
> available TODAY.

Let's pretend for a moment that you are right. IPSP is the way to go, today,
and that silly us, we should have used it. So now I go to my site manager, and
say:

	Please replace all that fancy expensive network hardware with new
	ones that speak IPSP so that we can do private communications with...

So who can I talk to? Name one router that speaks the secure protocols you are
documenting? Name one PPP based bridge that does? Show me, today, what
percentage of the Internet is covered by these standards? Give me some growth
curves showing how the Internet will quickly be converted to a secure network?

My point is not that IPSP is "bad". My point is that *today* it is irrelevant.
Tommorow is another matter.

In the future, I hope that you are right, IPSP is everywhere and we can all
breath a sigh of relief. In this case SSL is of little value. However, in the
mean time we have what we have. My company's network hardware is typical. It is
filled with expensive devices that don't understand IPSP or IPNG. In fact, most
of the world is constructed this way. What you are implicitly asking for is for
 the world to replace its networking hardware/software solutions before
allowing privacy. I think that this is a incorrect. SSL is a temporary solution
to a nagging problem. It's design was predicated on the belief that the future
is in protocols such as IPSP. Security will be pushed lower and lower until it
is omnipresent.

> > In some future land where IPNG or it's cousin's appear, then maybe
> > SSL will be unnecessary.
>
> Even were transport layer security needed, there are many other
> protocols for doing the exact same thing -- your solution is hardly
> new or interesting. Why not use an existing one instead of rolling Yet
> Another One? Of course, as I've repeatedly mentioned, network layer
> security is being used by many people today and will be standardised
> very soon -- probably before SSL.

We never claimed the solution was new or interesting. However, it is a
solution.

> > Finally, the system is perfectly usable in a proxy environment.
>
> Sheer ignorance. In your system I must trust each and every hop
> between myself and the document, and I must also trust all the
> servers. With public key signatures on the documents themselves, as
> Amanda Walker mentioned, you then need trust nothing at all in order
> to know that documents are authentic.

You are making the assumption that the proxy is able to understand the secure
conversations between a client and its eventual server. This need not be true
and should not be true.

> > Secondly, SSL is not an end, but a beginning. Instead of waiting 10
> > more years before the standards process gets around to inventing
> > some old technology and codifying it, we have put something out.
>
> I'm afraid that your technology is the old one, and as for "putting
> something out", as I mentioned network layer solutions are available
> for ftp TODAY. In source form. Immediately. Oh, and by the way, they
> don't incorporate such useless abortions as 40 bit RC4 keys.

You must have missed a line in the spec:

         #define SSL_CK_RC4_WITH_MD5                     0x01
         #define SSL_CK_RC4_EXPORT40_WITH_MD5            0x02
         #define SSL_CK_RC2_CBC_WITH_MD5                 0x03
         #define SSL_CK_RC2_CBC_EXPORT40_WITH_MD5        0x04
         #define SSL_CK_IDEA_CBC_WITH_MD5                0x05

Note the inclusion of plain RC4 (not 40 bit), plain RC2 (not 40 bit) and plain
IDEA (again, not 40 bit).

If you have an exportable solution that can be manufactured in the US and then
shipped overseas, then that is something of value. Complaining about 40 bit
keys is not of value. The ITAR rules are what they are and at this point in
time we can't change them.

> > We have made the protocol public instead of propreitary
>
> IPSP is also public. So what?
>
> > > > >	It is also
> > > > >     tied directly to the RSA certification hierarchy.
> > >
> > > I'll point out that X.509 is widely loathed in the internet community
> > > -- its X.509 that caused PEM to fall flat on its face and die.
> >
> > Loathed for what reason? Because it's a standard?
>
> We also loathe CLNP. Do you propose to do all your network layer
> communications over CLNP because it, too, is an ISO standard? ISO
> standards are universally loathed in the internet community -- and for
> good reasons. Lets take X.509 as one example.
>
> X.509 is tied into X.500 distinguished names. They are
>
> 1) Bulky
> 2) Do not map into DNS names
> 3) Cannot be mapped into the DNS.
> 4) Do not support the web of trust model.
> 5) Are difficult to build parsers for
> 6) Require bulky and often expensive X.500 directory systems to use
>    effectively.

Not true. Distinguished names can be bulky, but you don't have to use them that
way. They can be made to map into DNS names trivially, and because you don't
have to have a single root, a web of trust is perfectly possible. Examine how
PGP self signed public keys are managed. Finally, "bulky and often expensive"
is a matter of opinion.

Please define a solution that is:

	distributed
	reliable
	supports an unforgeable name to public-key mapping
	standard
	not-bulky
	not-expensive

I will be the first to sign up and buy one. The market exists.



-- 
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Kipp E.B. Hickman          Netscape Communications Corp.
kipp@mcom.com              http://www.mcom.com/people/kipp/index.html