Hello Robert,

Thanks for this detailed insight.
One question below:

On Nov 6, 2015, at 5:43 PM, Robert Cragie wrote:

> Some comments on some of the items raised in the thread so far:
> 
> * It is not about messages, it is more about how many flights occur between 
> initiator and responder. For example, with (D)TLS, it is normal to 
> incorporate a number of records in a single flight.
> 
> * The concept of an initial phase of PANA (PCI, PAR) is often needed for DoS 
> and rate-limiting purposes. If DTLS were used, you would still want to use 
> HelloVerifyRequest for the reasons it was developed for DTLS, there is no 
> overhead using PANA in this case.
> 
> * Whilst it seems straightforward to use DTLS, it may not be the case where a 
> JA is involved and it is likely that the DTLS records will need to be relayed 
> via the JA. The only IP address which can be effectively autoconfigured at 
> this stage is a link local address and therefore it can only go one hop to 
> the JA (or possibly JCE direct).
> 
> * Note that autoconfiguration of a link local address is pretty much zero 
> cost as it is simply forming an IID from the L2 address and prepending 
> fe80::/64. There may be some concerns about the privacy aspects but I think 
> privacy concerns are much more significant for global addresses and if L2 
> addresses have some sort of treatment for privacy, that it probably adequate 
> for link local addresses.
> 
> * Conceptually, all these mechanisms are fundamentally the same and when it 
> comes down to it, there is often little to choose between them. The weight of 
> the exchanges is based on the credentials and underlying crypto used for 
> authentication.
> 
> * Agree with the comment re. 1.C and 1.D - it is not just EAP-PSK. EAP by 
> definition requires and EAP transport and an EAP method. An EAP transport can 
> be PANA, 802.15.9 (i.e. IEs). EAPOL, RADIUS etc. and there are numerous EAP 
> methods (EAP-TLS, EAP-PSK, EAP-AKA, EAP-IKEV2). Therefore, I would focus on 
> those three layers as that is fundamentally what it comes down to:
> 
>   1. Transport
>   2. Protocol
>   3. Crypto
>   
> To summarise the two authentication schemes I am familiar with:
> 
> ZigBee IP:
> Transport: PANA/PANA relay
> Protocol: EAP/EAP-TLS
> Crypto: ECDHE-ECDSA, PSK
> 
> Thread:
> Transport: Direct/CoAP relay
> Protocol: DTLS
> Crypto: ECJPAKE
> 
> One might ask why a different approach was taken for Thread. The main reasons 
> are that DTLS is considered a key protocol for Thread applications (which 
> will likely use CoAP) and thus reuse of DTLS was considered paramount. Also, 
> the Commissioner model is substantially different to the Authenticator model 
> for ZigBee IP and it was considered more appropriate to use protocols a 
> phone/tablet app. would be more familiar with, i.e. CoAP and DTLS as opposed 
> to PANA/EAP/EAP-TLS. I would imagine the 6tisch architecture is closer to 
> ZigBee IP than Thread.
> 
> * The simplicity of PSK is offset by the need to manage confidential 
> information across the devices. It is always IMHO worth including PSK as a 
> minimal level, as it is very useful for testing purposes if nothing else
> 
> * In my experience, using EAP-TLS as an EAP method in conjunction with PANA 
> and EAP (i.e. ZigBee IP approach) allows for reuse of TLS library with 
> application layer, thus potentially saving code.
> 
> * EAP-TLS has a lot of functionality that DTLS has so one could consider 
> using DTLS in conjunction with an appropriate transport. That transport could 
> be PANA, CoAP or a combination of L2/L3 based.
> 
> * Whatever solution is proposed for transport MUST take into consideration 
> the JN-JA-JCE architecture, i.e. need to consider a point-to-point 
> communication between JN and JA (unauthenticated network) and normal 
> communication between JN and JCE.
> 
> * If CoAP is used as a transport, it must be distinguishable from other CoAP 
> traffic. This could either be through port or URI.
> 
> * Whilst PANA is an additional protocol, it is pretty lightweight and is 
> purely an authentication transport. The main issue I heard regarding PANA is 
> the fact it uses UDP and this can cause issues for stacks (especially 
> Linux-based stacks)
> 

What exactly is the issue there?

> * Using PANA in 802.15.9 is a case of transporting the data in IEs. We took a 
> different (IMHO simpler) approach in ZigBee IP and transported the PANA UDP 
> datagrams using 6LoWPAN over unsecured 802.15.4 packets. However, note 
> comment above re. use of UDP.
> 
> * One bonus of using PANA is the resultant PANA session, which is basically a 
> secure session between PAC and PAA, where the PAC (PANA client) is the device 
> requiring network access. This can be used for securely configuring network 
> parameters on the device, for example, in ZigBee IP it was used to securely 
> deliver the network key. There was an idea for it to deliver other parameters 
> as well but this was considered "treading on the toes" of 6LowPAN ND's 
> address registration and DHCP, although in both those cases, there is no way 
> to provide the secure session with which to transport the data. So I think 
> Tero has this wrong - PANA definitely can be used to distribute keys and be 
> used for rekeying, however I mean this independent of the pairwise key 
> established as part of the authentication between JN and JCE.
> 
> * I agree with Rafa's point that the JCE and JN should mutually authenticate 
> each other.
> 

Alper

> Robert
> 
> On 5 November 2015 at 00:06, Malisa Vucinic <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> > On 05 Nov 2015, at 00:18, Michael Richardson <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> >
> > It seems to me that we need to write a document that explains the join
> > *environment* in terms of radio and energy considerations.
> > Some of this discussion happened orally in security design team discussions,
> > but was perhaps assumed to be well known, or was simply assumed.
> 
> Some of the information is available in the introduction section of minimal, 
> but I definitely agree that it would be useful to spell out somewhere the 
> repercussions this has on the energy consumption during the join.
> 
> > One goal of this document is to define the simplest set of rules for
> >    building a TSCH-compliant network, at the necessary price of lesser
> >    efficiency.  Yet, this minimal mode of operation MAY also be used
> >    during network bootstrap before any schedule is installed into the
> >    network so nodes can self-organize and the management and
> >    configuration information be distributed.  In addition, the minimal
> >    configuration MAY be used as a fall-back mode of operation, ensuring
> >    connectivity of nodes in case that dynamic scheduling mechanisms fail
> >    or are not available.
> 
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