[Cryptography] Why are some protocols hard to deploy? (was Re: Opening Discussion: Speculation on "BULLRUN")

[ianG]

On 8/09/13 21:24 PM, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
> On Sat, 07 Sep 2013 18:50:06 -0700 John Gilmore <gnu at toad.com> wrote:
>> It was never clear to me why DNSSEC took so long to deploy,
> [...]
>> PS:...
>
> I believe you have answered your own question there, John. Even if we
> assume subversion, deployment requires cooperation from too many
> people to be fast.
>
> One reason I think it would be good to have future key management
> protocols based on very lightweight mechanisms that do not require
> assistance from site administrators to deploy is that it makes it
> ever so much easier for things to get off the ground. SSH deployed
> fast because one didn't need anyone's cooperation to use it -- if you
> had root on a server and wanted to log in to it securely, you could
> be up and running in minutes.


It's also worth remembering that one reason the Internet succeeded was 
that it did not need the permission of the local telcos and the purchase 
of expensive ISO/OSI stuff from the IT companies in order to get up and 
going.

This lesson is repeated over and over again.  Eliminate permission, and 
win.  Insert multiple permission steps and lose.


> We need to make more of our systems like that. The problem with
> DNSSEC is it is so obviously architecturally "correct" but so
> difficult to do deploy without many parties cooperating that it has
> acted as an enormous tar baby.



iang