User interface, security, and "simplicity"

Nicolas Williams Nicolas.Williams at sun.com
Tue May 6 15:05:24 EDT 2008


On Tue, May 06, 2008 at 03:40:46PM +0000, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
> Experiment part two: implement remote login (or remote IMAP, or remote
> Web with per-user privileges, etc.) under similar conditions.  Recall
> that being able to do this was a goal of the IPsec working group.
> 
> I think that part one is doable, though possibly the existing APIs are
> incomplete.  I don't think that part two is doable, and certainly not
> with high assurance.  In particular, with TLS the session key can be
> negotiated between two user contexts; with IPsec/IKE, it's negotiated
> between a user and a system.  (Yes, I'm oversimplifying here.)

"Connection latching" and "connection-oriented" IPsec APIs can address
this problem.

Solaris, and at least one other IPsec implementation (OpenSwan?  I
forget) makes sure that all packets for any one TCP connection (or UDP
"connection") are protected (or bypassed) the same way during their
lifetime.  "The same way" -> by similar SAs, that is, SAs with the same
algorithms, same peers, and various other parameters.

A WGLC is about to start in the IETF BTNS WG on an I-D that describes
this.

Nico
-- 

---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo at metzdowd.com



More information about the cryptography mailing list