Re: [secdir] secdir review of draft-ietf-grow-filtering-threats-06

Pierre Francois <pierre.francois@imdea.org> Wed, 08 July 2015 15:05 UTC

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From: Pierre Francois <pierre.francois@imdea.org>
In-Reply-To: <ldv615v238s.fsf@sarnath.mit.edu>
Date: Wed, 08 Jul 2015 17:05:26 +0200
Message-Id: <1A2F3643-49F9-4242-B67A-995DE3132AAA@imdea.org>
References: <ldv615v238s.fsf@sarnath.mit.edu>
To: Tom Yu <tlyu@MIT.EDU>
Archived-At: <http://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/secdir/dChrQN8rK1WKnpV5xjq4dvwM9f0>
Cc: draft-ietf-grow-filtering-threats.all@tools.ietf.org, iesg@ietf.org, secdir@ietf.org
Subject: Re: [secdir] secdir review of draft-ietf-grow-filtering-threats-06
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Tom,

Thanks a lot for your review. Comments inline.

Pierre.

> On 07 Jul 2015, at 21:10, Tom Yu <tlyu@MIT.EDU> wrote:
> 
> I have reviewed this document as part of the security directorate's
> ongoing effort to review all IETF documents being processed by the IESG.
> These comments were written primarily for the benefit of the security
> area directors.  Document editors and WG chairs should treat these
> comments just like any other last call comments.
> 
> Summary: Ready with nits
> 
> Consider adding text to the Introduction mentioning malicious activity
> as a possible cause of these unexpected traffic flows, rather than
> leaving it toward the end of the document in the Security
> Considerations.
> 
> The Security Considerations (Section 6) text describes possible
> malicious activity by an AS to deliberately cause unexpected traffic
> flow through another AS.  Although the first paragraph of the Security
> Considerations says "The objective of this document is to inform on this
> potential routing security issue", there appears to be no prior mention
> in this document of possibility of maliciously induced unexpected
> traffic flow.  The current Introduction characterizes the unexpected
> traffic flows primarily as side effects of filtering or other
> configuration, but appears not to include the possibility of a malicious
> cause.

We agree. However, we got feedback in the past that the same technical situation can occur without malicious intent and so were asked to reword
the draft without implying malicious intent. We heard at the mic “I’ve done it and I am not evil”, “This is traffic engineering, not an attack”.

Still, we were recommended to put this explanation in the security consideration section because, well, it can also happen due to malicious intent
(gaining reach for cheap through another party's network).

I’m afraid that by changing this again, I’d be starting another revolution (in the mathematical sense) here… but what about:

Introduction:

OLD: The objective of this draft is to shed light on possible side effects associated with more specific prefix filtering. This document presents examples of such side effects and discusses approaches towards solutions to the problem.

NEW:  The objective of this draft is to shed light on possible side effects associated with such more specific prefix filtering.
Such actions can be explained by traffic engineering action, misconfiguration, or malicious intent.
This document presents examples of such side effects and discusses approaches towards solutions to the problem.

> 
> Editorial:
> 
> In the second paragraph of Section 1: "While BGP" should be "Although
> BGP", to avoid implying dependency or temporal coincidence.
> 
> In the first two paragraphs of Section 3.1, "his" should be "its".
> Please avoid the unnecessary use of gendered pronouns.
> 
> In the first paragraph of Section 3.2, delete "data" from "as much data
> information as possible".
> 
> For the title of Section 4, consider dropping one instance of the word
> "traffic".
> 
> In the last paragraph of Section 4.1, in the sentence "...neighboring
> AS... opposes the peering agreement", consider replacing "opposes" with
> "contravenes", "infringes", or another synonym.

Thank you !

Cheers,

Pierre.

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[secdir] secdir review of draft-ietf-grow-filteri… Tom Yu
Re: [secdir] secdir review of draft-ietf-grow-fil… Pierre Francois

Re: [secdir] secdir review of draft-ietf-grow-filtering-threats-06

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