Subject: [anonsec] BTNS work in pki4ipsec

From: hartmans-ietf at mit.edu (Sam Hartman)
Date: Wed Nov 17 14:17:07 2004

It's great to see such interest in the topic of anonymous or
no-infrastructure security.  I enjoyed the bof and look forward to
this work going on in the IETF.

However when I discussed the results of the bof with Russ Housley, he
pointed out that this work could happen in the pki4ipse working group
if that group is rechartered.  That seems to be a better direction for
the work.  Both Russ and I believe that having two working groups
specifying how IPsec interacts with the (lack of) a PKI would be
problematic.

I talked to the chairs of the pki4ipse working group and both chairs
are interested in pursuing rechartering to allow for anonymous
security.

What I'd like to do on this list is come up with an initial proposal
for how to amend to the pki4ipse charter to address this work.  Once
this list comes to a consensus, we can present that work to Paul and
Gregory (the pki4ipse chairs).  They will then treat that as input to
a rechartering process within their working group.  Ultimately when
the pki4ipse working group comes up with an acceptable new charter,
Russ will take it to the IESG.

I'd like to draw your attention to
http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/pki4ipse-charter.html which is the
current charter.  I believe our current goal is to propose a revision
to that charter that allows for the btns work agreed at the bof.

Thanks,

--Sam

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From: Nicolas.Williams at sun.com (Nicolas Williams)
Date: Wed Nov 17 14:31:09 2004

> specifying how IPsec interacts with the (lack of) a PKI would be

Before Joe made his initial ANONSEC proposal I mentioned this on the
PKI4IPSEC list[1].

Given the consensus that was reached at the BoF on what work to charter
for BTNS, how little work, that is, and how well it seems to fit in the
PKI4IPSEC space, I wholeheartedly agree.

[1]  On Jan 25 2004, in fact, in the "Significance of ID payload"
thread.  Time flies.

> are interested in pursuing rechartering to allow for anonymous

I recommend we stay away from the word 'anonymous' in regards to this
work -- it's caused nothing but trouble on this list :)

> Russ will take it to the IESG.

I will formulate some text and send my proposal to the list shortly.

> to that charter that allows for the btns work agreed at the bof.

It would be nice, of course, to have a record of what was agreed to at
the BoF -- minutes have yet to be posted.

Cheers,

Nico
--

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From: lars.eggert at netlab.nec.de (Lars Eggert)
Date: Wed Nov 17 14:43:09 2004

Sam,

> specifying how IPsec interacts with the (lack of) a PKI would be

to make this work, pki4ipsec would need to recharter to include the 
exact opposite of what they are currently working on. They work on the 
specifics of how to integrate existing IPsec with a PKI. BTNS, on the 
other hand, would work on how to use IPsec *without* a PKI. I don't see 
how these two very different work items could successfully be tackled by 
a single WG.

Lars
-- 
Lars Eggert                                     NEC Network Laboratories
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From: hartmans-ietf at mit.edu (Sam Hartman)
Date: Wed Nov 17 15:01:07 2004

>>>>> "Lars" == Lars Eggert <[email-masked]> writes:

    Lars> to make this work, pki4ipsec would need to recharter to
    Lars> include the exact opposite of what they are currently
    Lars> working on. They work on the specifics of how to integrate
    Lars> existing IPsec with a PKI. BTNS, on the other hand, would
    Lars> work on how to use IPsec *without* a PKI. I don't see how
    Lars> these two very different work items could successfully be
    Lars> tackled by a single WG.

I think the assumption here is that the people willing to work on this
task in the btns wg would also be willing to work on the same task in
the pki4ipse wg.  The problem we're trying to avoid is to make sure
that the two documents don't say conflicting things and to make sure
the right people review both documents.

--Sam

---

From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch)
Date: Thu Nov 18 08:14:17 2004

> how these two very different work items could successfully be tackled by 

That seems to be the larger issue to me. BTNS is the antithesis of PKI, 
period. It is inappropriate to consider merging these two communitues, 
mostly because it would be impossible to have productive meetings with 
diametrically opposed goals.

Joe
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From: Nicolas.Williams at sun.com (Nicolas Williams)
Date: Thu Nov 18 12:42:13 2004

Proposed modification to PKI4IPSEC charter for inclusion of BTNS work:

 - To the end of the first paragraph add:

   "Finally, unauthenticated IPsec modes are desired for a number of
   applications, possibly including: better than nothing security,
   leap-of-faith sharing of certificates, and for providing
   unauthenticated channels for use with channel bindings at higher
   layers."

 - To the end of the charter add:

   "Use of unauthenticated IPsec may require profiling of key exchange
   protocols and/or changes to the processing model (rfc2401/bis)."

Nico
--

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From: hartmans-ietf at mit.edu (Sam Hartman)
Date: Thu Nov 18 12:57:09 2004

Assuming that the work is to happen in pki4ipse, how do people feel
about Nico's proposed changes as a recommended starting point to the
pki4ipse chairs.

---

From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch)
Date: Thu Nov 18 13:04:14 2004

I do not think it is appropriate to consider any rechartering specifics
until the issue of the appropriate home for this work is.

Right now, (draft author hat on), pki4ipsec is not where I would like to
take this work. If there are other WGs or BOFs to consider merging with,
I'd be interested in hearing them.

Joe

Sam Hartman wrote:
| Assuming that the work is to happen in pki4ipse, how do people feel
| about Nico's proposed changes as a recommended starting point to the
| pki4ipse chairs.
|
| _______________________________________________

---

From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch)
Date: Thu Nov 18 14:14:24 2004

Nicolas Williams wrote:
| Proposed modification to PKI4IPSEC charter for inclusion of BTNS work:
|
|  - To the end of the first paragraph add:
|
|    "Finally, unauthenticated IPsec modes are desired for a number of
|    applications, possibly including: better than nothing security,
|    leap-of-faith sharing of certificates, and for providing
|    unauthenticated channels for use with channel bindings at higher
|    layers."
|
|  - To the end of the charter add:
|
|    "Use of unauthenticated IPsec may require profiling of key exchange
|    protocols and/or changes to the processing model (rfc2401/bis)."
|
| Nico

To resume this thread, under the assumption that this track has not yet
been confirmed:

The current PKI4IPSEC charter mentions VPNs prominently, notably:

| SCOPE
| The working group will focus on the needs of enterprise scale
| IPsec VPN deployments.

IMO, BTNS does not share any VPN-biased scope. While the approach might
be applicable to VPNs, VPNs are not the focus of the BTNS-side of the
work. Is there a way to _remove_ this focus from their charter or at
least limit its effect to their current work items?

Joe

---

From: Nicolas.Williams at sun.com (Nicolas Williams)
Date: Thu Nov 18 14:24:13 2004

> | The working group will focus on the needs of enterprise scale

Uhm, I don't see that in the charter at all.  Are you looking at the
URL that Sam posted?

Nico
--

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From: sommerfeld at sun.com (Bill Sommerfeld)
Date: Thu Nov 18 14:27:14 2004

> work.

I'd go a little further.  One area of danger where a naive BTNS could
make things worse is if policies permit a weakly identified peer to suck
down traffic to/from a third party address. 

BTNS should most likely be limited to transport mode and/or what some of
my coworkers refer to as "self encapsulated" tunnel mode where the inner
and outer src and dst match.

So there should be no overlap between the "VPN" space and the "BTNS"
space.

pki4ipsec is not in general limited to VPNs, though -- most of the PKI
interactions are nearly identical for transport mode

> Is there a way to _remove_ this focus from their charter or at
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From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch)
Date: Thu Nov 18 14:51:45 2004

> and outer src and dst match.

What does that mean if you don't know who puts on the addresses?

> So there should be no overlap between the "VPN" space and the "BTNS"

But wouldn't that argue that this is orthogonal to pki4ipsec, and thus 
should be a different WG?

> interactions are nearly identical for transport mode

But transport mode can include IPIP tunnels too.

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From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch)
Date: Thu Nov 18 14:58:42 2004

> Uhm, I don't see that in the charter at all.  Are you looking at the

Nope; I had an old one. But the one Sam posted has:

-----
Within IPsec VPNs, the PKI supports authentication of peers through
digital signatures during security association establishment using IKE.
To date, SCEP and "cut-and-paste" techniques are more commonly used to
accomplish end entity certificate acquisition for IPsec VPN usage, but
are better suited to small VPN deployments, and are out of scope for
this solution. A robust certificate management scheme is needed to
empower operators in large scale deployment and management efforts.
-----

BTNS is NOT a robust certificate management scheme. This is just one 
inconsistency with BTNS. There may be others. My point is that we can't 
just 'tack on' BTNS'-related items. We would need to edit the current 
PKI4IPSEC charter as well.

Joe
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From: Nicolas.Williams at sun.com (Nicolas Williams)
Date: Thu Nov 18 15:34:14 2004

> should be a different WG?

Bill points out that PKI4IPSEC is not focused on VPNs.

> But transport mode can include IPIP tunnels too.

You can pretty much tunnel anything in anything.  So what?

And yes, unauthenticated IPsec needs to be transport mode only, even
though sufficiently clever folk could tunnel over that.

Cheers,

Nico
--

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From: Nicolas.Williams at sun.com (Nicolas Williams)
Date: Thu Nov 18 15:40:15 2004

> Nope; I had an old one. But the one Sam posted has:

BTW, that's evidence that a focus on VPN must have been considered
inappropriate at some earlier point in the PKI4IPSEC charter bashing.

> empower operators in large scale deployment and management efforts.

This is a portion of the PKI4IPSEC charter that is specific to VPNs, but
the charter is not overall specific to VPNs and anyways we're being
given a chance to *change* that charter so we could remove any focus on
VPNs if there was, indeed, such a focus.

> PKI4IPSEC charter as well.

Sam is giving us an opportunity to do just that.  I certainly would
condition any move of the BTNS work to another WG on changing the target
WG's chater to support the BTNS work, but since that's now a given,
what's the problem?

Nico
--

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From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch)
Date: Thu Nov 18 16:09:42 2004

> On Thu, Nov 18, 2004 at 02:57:23PM -0800, Joe Touch wrote:
...
> VPNs if there was, indeed, such a focus.

That's what I'm talking about - removing this. Is there a way to remove 
the issue of robust certificate management? What else?

> WG's chater to support the BTNS work, but since that's now a given,

It's more than adding BTNS (that's an assumed prerequisite, as you 
mention). It's what else gets removed.

Joe
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From: Nicolas.Williams at sun.com (Nicolas Williams)
Date: Thu Nov 18 20:47:16 2004

> the issue of robust certificate management? What else?

Why?  Why can't a WG work on two things which relate only in one way but
not another?

Nico
--

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From: kent at bbn.com (Stephen Kent)
Date: Fri Nov 19 10:56:19 2004

>about Nico's proposed changes as a recommended starting point to the

I have mixed feeling about the proposed charter changes to 
accommodate BTNS in pki4ipsec.

On one hand, as I noted earlier, if the intent is to accommodate 
self-signed certs in IPsec, I think we can do that via the PAD 
definition I am working on now for pki4Ipsec. However, when I see 
phrases like "changes to the processing  model" I worry, since that 
is not a profiling activity.

Steve

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From: Nicolas.Williams at sun.com (Nicolas Williams)
Date: Fri Nov 19 11:05:23 2004

> is not a profiling activity.

Excuse *my* use of that phrase.  What I meant is that IPsec policies
will have to be able to reference unauthenticated IPsec, and -- correct
me if I'm wrong -- that is something that would have an impact on the
2401bis document, no?

---

From: kent at bbn.com (Stephen Kent)
Date: Fri Nov 19 14:27:29 2004

>me if I'm wrong -- that is something that would have an impact on the

because the PAD description in 2401bis is not really complete, I 
think we can address the issue in the more complete PAD text I am 
preparing for pki4ipsec now. But, we'll have to see how that turns 
out to know for sure.

Steve

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From: Nicolas.Williams at sun.com (Nicolas Williams)
Date: Fri Nov 19 15:54:20 2004

> preparing for pki4ipsec now. But, we'll have to see how that turns 

Excellent.

BTW, is there any document anywhere describing what Bill Sommerfeld
calls "connection latching?"

---

From: kent at bbn.com (Stephen Kent)
Date: Mon Nov 22 08:22:35 2004

At 5:52 PM -0600 11/19/04, Nicolas Williams wrote:
>____________________________________________

ask Bill.