On Thu, Feb 6, 2020 at 5:14 PM Benjamin Kaduk <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Thu, Feb 06, 2020 at 12:51:21PM -0800, Eric Rescorla wrote:
> > On Thu, Feb 6, 2020 at 12:44 PM Brian Dickson <
> [email protected]>
> > wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Thu, Feb 6, 2020 at 12:08 PM Eric Rescorla <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> On Thu, Feb 6, 2020 at 12:04 PM Brian Dickson <
> > >> [email protected]> wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> Top-top-top reply:
> > >>> The Internet Threat Model you are using for web client-server is
> fine.
> > >>> However, for DNS, that is the wrong threat model, for several
> reasons.
> > >>>
> > >>>    - The threat for DNS cache poisoning is
> recursive-to-authoritative,
> > >>>    not client-recursive(resolver)
> > >>>    - The DNS path will not generally be related to the data path, and
> > >>>    for any parent zone, almost certainly will be totally unrelated
> > >>>    - DNS recursive-to-authoritative is UDP
> > >>>    - UDP DNS does not require that the attacker be on-path
> > >>>    - Compromise of DNS caches via poisoning (by potentially off-path
> > >>>    attackers) leading to compromise of user data is not exaggerated.
> > >>>    - The compromise risk is per-cache, as well as
> per-authority-server
> > >>>    and/or per-DNS record.
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >> First, all of these are just consequences of the 3552 "attacker
> > >> completely controls the network" threat model.
> > >>
> > >
> > > Sorry, I'm not clear on what this statement means in this context, or
> what
> > > the implication of this should be inferred as being.
> > >
> > > Are you saying:
> > >
> > >    - It should be assumed (per the threat model) that any/every
> attacker
> > >    completely controls every network segment everywhere?
> > >    - or, that only attackers who DO control some specific network
> segment
> > >    are a threat?
> > >
> > > These have vastly different implications, clearly.
> > > If the first one is the case, are you conceding the precondition, that
> > > attackers can poison DNS caches arbitrarily, by manipulating all DNS
> > > traffic? If so, that argues in favor of DNSSEC validation by the
> resolver
> > > in all cases, as that is the only way the attack can be blocked.
> > >
> > > If the second one is the case, the bullet points you quote, contradict
> > > that assertion. Specifically, that off-path attackers do not need to
> > > control any network segment (let alone all network segments), to
> > > successfully poison a DNS cache. This also argues in favor of DNSSEC
> > > validation.
> > >
> > > If you mean something else, could you explain what you mean?
> > >
> >
> > I'm saying that TLS assumes a Dolev-Yao threat model in which the
> attacker
> > is on-path between the client and the server and therefore can manipulate
> > the traffic regardless of whether the client correctly knows the server's
> > IP.
>
> TLS also punts the key-management story to be out of scope.
> We have a lot of worked examples of the Web PKI failing (and also have lots
> of people working really hard to get it to improve, which I greatly
> appreciate),


I hear this argument a lot, but those examples are orders of magnitude
lower than the fraction of domains which aren't even DNSSEC protected.



> but given that the recursive has no way of knowing what the
> DNS client is planning to do (and that some ~20% of web traffic does not
> use TLS), it's hard for me to argue that this document is making the wrong
> recommendation about DNSSEC validation.
>

The question at hand is not about whether it ought to recommend DNSSEC
validation but rather whether the text around that, which implies that
failure to do so has a high risk of sending your sensitive *web* traffic to
the attacker, is accurate given the high fraction of Web traffic that is
protected with TLS and the likely even higher fraction of sensitive traffic
that is.

-Ekr


> -Ben
>
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