Subject: Re: [Smart] Draft Charter For SMART Proposed RG

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2018 21:08:16 +0100

Hiya,

I think there's work here that could be interesting, so
I'd be supportive of what I hope this RG might be about,
but I'm not quite sure...

I would be re-assured if the charter was explicit that
the putative RG is not trying to break or weaken the
security aspects of IETF protocols. I believe that that
is the case - after all the overwhelming majority of
people using the Internet, including those defending
the security of systems, really need those security
features - but given the history, the "in a world of
encrypted data" is the kind of phrase that could raise
hackles, and hackles are better not raised.

I don't much care what words would be used, so long as
it's clear that the putative RG is not setting out to
e.g. upend the IETF's BCPs on these topics.

There are real tensions and challenges created by encrypting
more and better, and in reducing uses of identifiers to be
more privacy-friendly, but IMO successfully investigating
those issues requires being explicit that one is not aiming
to weaken things like e2e security as a feature of Internet
protocols.

Cheers,
S.

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From: Kirsty P <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2018 11:22:53 +0000

Stephen,

Thank you for your comments! Great to hear you think the work here could be interesting.

I hope I can clarify what the proposed RG is about, and get your support. I can reassure you are correct in believing what our aims are - we are not trying to weaken the privacy aspect of protocols, and it is not the intention of the RG to propose modifications to IETF protocols - we want cyber defence methods to co-exist along encryption, rather than seeking to break or weaken it. Hopefully, as you say, stating this explicitly in our charter will let us investigate these real tensions and challenges without raising any hackles.

The draft charter is still up for discussion, so we can certainly change the phrase "will investigate how cyber attack defence requirements can be met in a world of encrypted data". I know you said you don't much care what words are used, but do you have any thoughts on to better say what we mean? How does something like "will investigate how cyber attack defence requirements can be met without weakening the protection afforded by encryption" sound to you?

I hope this allays your concerns, and I welcome any further input you (or others) might have.

Kirsty

________________________________
From: Smart <[email-masked]> on behalf of Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Sent: 27 September 2018 21:08
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [Smart] Draft Charter For SMART Proposed RG

Hiya,

Cheers,
S.
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From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2018 13:08:03 +0100

Hiya,

On 28/09/18 12:22, Kirsty P wrote:
> How does something like "will investigate how cyber attack defence
> requirements can be met without weakening the protection afforded by
> encryption" sound to you?
Sounds like a good start. Maybe referring to some relevant IETF BCPs
might be useful (e.g. BCP200, BCP188) and/or the IAB statement [1] on
confidentiality) as being foundational things from which this RG wants
to build?

I think another aspect is also worth a mention - to improve privacy,
we'll also often want to deal with identifiers differently from how
we've done that in the past, e.g. to use identifiers that are less
personally identifying or less stable or to remove them entirely
from some protocols or just not put them in new protocols. And that
creates a different tension between privacy and defence.

As examples - in the case of mail there was a discussion a few years
ago on eliding IP addresses from Received: header fields but even
though that's already done by some large mail service providers,
the idea of standardising that freaked out some anti-spam folks:-)
In the case of DHCP, we ended up developing a privacy-friendly profile
so that e.g. clients don't spew their hostname all the time (RFC7844).

So I'd also suggest adding a bit of text ack'ing that such non-crypto
privacy goals are as valid in the trade space as are desires to know
who're the possible guilty parties for some misbehaviour. And in some
cases the privacy goals may well win out over the defence goal to
know who's doing what.

Note that I'm not suggesting that everyone involved in the putative
RG has to have inhaled all the same fumes as me, but given the tensions
in this space and the history, I think it'd be good if this RG has
explicitly bought in to IETF BCPs, so that anyone who's angling to
modify those knows that that ought be done in/by the IETF and not
via RG activity.

Cheers,
S.

[1]
https://www.iab.org/documents/correspondence-reports-documents/2014-2/iab-statement-on-internet-confidentiality/

PS: I'm deliberately not suggesting specific wording because I think
it's likely better if the words used come from yourself and other folks
proposing this.