On 16-Nov-2015 08:11 am, Bob Harold <[email protected]> wrote: 
> 
> On Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 10:31 AM, Watson Ladd <[email protected] 
> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 10:28 AM, Olafur Gudmundsson <[email protected] 
> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> >
> >> On Nov 16, 2015, at 8:41 AM, Andreas Gustafsson <[email protected] 
> >> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> >>
> >> Shane Kerr wrote:
> >>> Andreas Gustafsson <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> I'm also wondering if there might be scenarios where the messages are
> >>>> compressed before encryption.  If that is the case, padding with zeros
> >>>> is of limited value because they will mostly compress away, and the
> >>>> ability to send data of similar compressibility to actual payload
> >>>> data, or data of unpredictable compressibility, would be useful.
> >>>
> >>> It's an interesting idea, but I think I'd like to see some solid
> >>> research on this. We understand how to add 0 bytes; I don't personally
> >>> understand the implications of generating "similarly compressible" data
> >>> to prevent attackers from doing traffic analysis.
> >>>
> >>> My own feeling is that we should proceed with 0-padding, and perhaps
> >>> consider alternate schemes later if there is good guidance in the area
> >>> of non-empty padding.
> >>
> >> We can certainly proceed with *sending* 0-padding.  All I'm asking is
> >> for receivers not to reject messages with nonzero padding, so that if
> >> alternate schemes are introduced in future senders, they can
> >> interoperate with existing receivers.
> >
> > +1 All resolvers should ignore the contents padding
> >
> >>
> >>> Surely academics have looked at this! Do you have pointers to some
> >>> papers covering this approach?
> >>
> >> I'm afraid not.
> >
> > Shane,
> >
> > There is lots of work in this area, but it is trivial to reason about the 
> > issue from DNS perspective
> > Goal: hide how long the query name is, to defeat traffic analysis.
> >
> > Padding of the same value in each byte can be compressed to almost nothing 
> > ==> same as having no padding, ==> failed to meet goal.
> > TLS by default in many cases, compresses before transmission,  ==> DNS 
> > padding option must defeat compression
> 
> This is a problem that is easily fixed: turn off compression. TLS 1.3
> is eliminating compression for similar reasons.
> 
> >
> > I think the WG should consider if the current text of saying use 0x00 is 
> > not good enough,
> > there are 3 options, use:
> >         - 0x00
> >         - cheap randomness
> >         - real randomness source
> >
> > I think the middle one is good enough, a simple seeded hash function i.e. 
> > HMAC  is sufficient or /dev/urandom
> >
> > Olafur
> >
> 
> The reason they wanted 0-padding, and to be verified by the receiver is to 
> prevent that data from being used as a hidden communication channel by 
> viruses.  Changing that to random, or not checked, is therefore a problem.  
> But then it is compressible, which is a different issue.  I don't see an easy 
> solution.

There are a myriad of other, existing hidden communication channels, including 
0x20 encoding, DGA, etc.  I agree padding is another vector, but padding is 
only between the two DPRIVE entities, and is terminated there (unlike DGA which 
always hits the authoritative server).  Padding is a steganographic channel and 
only useful when communicating directly with the peer that understands the 
meaning of the padding, in which case non-DNS packets could be sent to that 
peer, anyway.

-d

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