Re: Referencing BCPs [Re: ion-procdocs open for public comment]

[John C Klensin <john-ietf at jck.com>]

--On Wednesday, 31 January, 2007 17:02 +0000 "Steven M.
Bellovin" <smb at cs.columbia.edu> wrote:

> On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:54:26 -0500
> John C Klensin <john-ietf at jck.com> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Except for the fact that the material being cited contains the
>> specifics of license and IPR releases, and promises to abide
>> by certain rules, by the authors.  Authors can't reasonably be
>> asked to agree to something that might be published under the
>> BCP number in the indefinite future, so you are either stuck
>> with a document (RFC) number or a BCP as of a specific date,
>> which amounts to the same thing and is harder to track down.
>> 
> 
> I'll let Jorge correct me if I'm wrong, but referencing by
> <number,date> is the norm in the legal world, since statutes
> do get amended without necessarily being renumbered.

I believe that is correct.  The problem here is that, as a
consequence of that referencing system, they have taken measures
to be sure that the version corresponding to the reference is
readily available.  We don't do that: finding on 
> the other hand, this objective is actually met, I did not see where 
> this is explained.  Is it met, and - if so - is it explained?

The objective is actually met, but I see your point that this is not made
clear in the draft.

Specifically:  It is true that a node needs a public/private-key pair in
order to generate a CGA and to prove ownership of this CGA to its peers.
Yet such an IP address ownership proof still does not require a PKI.  In
general, a PKI provides a secure binding between a node's identifier and
public key, but in the case of a CGA, the CGA itself is cryptographically
bound to the CGA owner's public key.  So where the CGA serves as an
identifier for its owner -- as is the case in an IP address ownership
proof --, no PKI is required.  This is the primary advantage of CGA-based
authentication compared to other public-key approaches.

To clarify this matter, I suggest to extend subsection 3.1.
("Cryptographically Generated Home Addresses") in the "Protocol Design"
section as follows:

OLD:

                                                  [...]  In general, a
    CGA provides a strong binding between its interface identifier and
    the CGA owner's public key.  This enables other nodes to securely
    authenticate the CGA owner as such, modulo the correctness of the
    CGA's subnet prefix.  [...]

NEW (shortened):

                                                  [...]  In general, a
    CGA provides a strong, cryptographic binding between its interface
    identifier and the CGA owner's public key.  This facilitates a
    cryptographic home address ownership proof without a PKI, enabling
    other nodes to securely and autonomously authenticate the CGA owner
    as such, modulo the correctness of the CGA's subnet prefix.  [...]

> ____________________________________________________________________
> 
> I suggest changing the 2nd paragraph in IANA Considerations to read 
> something like:
> 
> This document allocates the following four new status codes for Binding
> Acknowledgment messages:
> 
> "Permanent home keygen token unavailable", "CGA and signature
> verification failed", "Permanent home keygen token exists", and 
> "Non-null home nonce index expected"
> 
> The values to be assigned for these status codes must all be greater
> than or equal to 128, indicating that the respective Binding Update
> message was rejected by the receiving correspondent node.

Yes, that would be more clearly arranged.  Will change it.

> ____________________________________________________________________
> 
> I also suggest that this document should be accompanied with an 
> explicit RFC Editor's note to replace TBD with IANA assigned values (as
> identified by associated parenthetical value names) in several places
> throughout the draft.  It would help if specific TBDs were distinct
> (e.g. TBD-1, TBD-2, TBD-3 and TBD-4) and these "variable" names then
> associated (perhaps in a table) with their meanings in the IANA
> considerations section.

Ok.  There are quite a number of numbers to be allocated by IANA, so I see
your point of making it a bit easier for IANA.

> ____________________________________________________________________
> 
> Reference 6 ("Cryptographically Generated Addresses (CGA)" - RFC 3972)
> should be Normative.

Indeed.

> ____________________________________________________________________
> 
> NITs: ====
> 
> In the 3rd bullet of section 2.2 (Security), on page 7, it should be
> "mobile or correspondent" verses "mobile and correspondent" (more 
> inclusive as it is probably necessary only to victimize one or the 
> other to effect a denial of service).

Yes, will change it.

> ____________________________________________________________________
> 
> In the first bullet of the last set of (3) bullets on page 18, it is 
> really necessary to break this sentence up at least with commas - in 
> order to make it so a reader can parse it.  I suggest:
> 
> "If the Binding Update message is complete, the care-of nonce index is
> taken from the Care-of Test option or Care-of Test message with  out what was
actually BCP NNN on some particular date requires both skill and
out of band knowledge.

> I do agree we want to make it easy for non-lawyers.  I've
> suggested a date-stamped archive of each version of each such
> document, for precisely that reason. 

That, of course, would do that job and eliminate all of my
objections.  But it does mean that, for many purposes, we can't
use a reference to "BCP nnnn", it must be a reference to "BCP
nnnn as of yyyymmdd" or its equivalent.

      john


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which
> the care-of keygen token (used to calculate the authenticator for the
> Binding Update message) was obtained."
> 
> Note that I use parens, rather than commas, to make the structure more
> readily apparent.

This is easier to parse, yes.  I'll change it.

> ____________________________________________________________________
> 
> In section 6 (Security Considerations), the statement about changes in
> the security model - should the reference be [4], rather than - or in
> addition to - [1]?

Yes, the reference should be [4], and it should appear after "security
model" rather than after "base Mobile IPv6".  Thanks for catching this!

Eric, my co-authors and I appreciate your review.  Thanks again for taking
your time!

Regards,
- Christian

-- 
Christian Vogt, Institute of Telematics, Universitaet Karlsruhe (TH)
www.tm.uka.de/~chvogt/pubkey/



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