On 4/26/17, 1:57 PM, "Kathleen Moriarty"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 1:51 PM, Adam Roach <[email protected]> wrote:
>> On 4/26/17 12:03, Acee Lindem (acee) wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> From: Adam Roach <[email protected]>
>> Date: Wednesday, April 26, 2017 at 12:46 PM
>> To: Eric Rescorla <[email protected]>
>> Cc: Acee Lindem <[email protected]>, The IESG <[email protected]>, Jeff
>>Tantsura
>> <[email protected]>, "[email protected]"
>><[email protected]>,
>> "[email protected]"
>> <[email protected]>, Routing WG <[email protected]>
>> Subject: Re: Adam Roach's No Objection on
>> draft-ietf-rtgwg-yang-key-chain-20: (with COMMENT)
>>
>> On 4/25/17 18:29, Eric Rescorla wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Apr 25, 2017 at 3:51 PM, Adam Roach <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>> - Section 5 also suggests keys be encrypted or obfuscated on the
>>>>>device
>>>>> that is to use them, presumably in a way that can be decrypted or
>>>>> unobfuscated using information also on the device. I don't know what
>>>>>the
>>>>> current security area thinking around this is, but given that the
>>>>> information needed to retrieve plaintext keys is necessarily present
>>>>>on
>>>>> the device, this seems like a fig-leaf that provides an illusion of
>>>>> security without providing any real benefit. That mis-impression
>>>>>seems
>>>>> potentially harmful.
>>>>
>>>> I only added this at the behest of one of the other reviews. The
>>>>problem
>>>> with security is that there conflicting opinions, and as the adage
>>>>goes
>>>> “everybody’s got one.” I’ll defer to the Security ADs.
>>>
>>>
>>> Right; that's what I meant by "I don't know what the current security
>>>area
>>> thinking around this is." I'd be curious to have EKR or Kathleen weigh
>>>in
>>
>>
>> What I took home here was that you would encrypt them and display the
>> encrypted
>> version instead of showing asterisks. Is that not what the thinking was?
>>
>>
>> By my reading, this is just talking about encrypting "on the disk"
>>storage
>> on the device. Any processes involved in provisioning the values or
>>using
>> them to process traffic would have access to the plaintext, presumably
>>by
>> reading the encrypted form off disk, reading some keying material off
>>disk,
>> and combining them to retrieve the plaintext key.
>>
>>
>> This is the correct interpretation.
>>
>>
>>
>> My concern is: if these process can extract the plaintext key from
>> information stored on the disk, then so can other processes on the same
>> device. Encryption in this case seems to provide the mere illusion of
>> security -- akin to installing an deadbolt keyhole on a door that has no
>> actual bolt attached.
>>
>>
>> I don’t see any way around this if you want to use the keys.
>>
>>
>> So don't encrypt the keys on disk. To use the analogy I set up above --
>>it's
>> better for people to *know* that there's no deadbolt than to mistakenly
>> think that there is one: it leads them to take an appropriate level of
>> precaution.
>
>Brian pointed out that RFC5649 is used with other YANG modules, so I'm
>going to poke at the gap a little that Acee mentioned for operators.

This is not true for any IETF YANG models.

Thanks,
Acee


>
>Thanks.
>>
>> /a
>
>
>
>-- 
>
>Best regards,
>Kathleen

_______________________________________________
rtgwg mailing list
[email protected]
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/rtgwg

Reply via email to