On Sat, May 27, 2023 at 2:16 PM Manfredi (US), Albert E <[email protected]> wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > From: Tom Herbert <[email protected]> > > > Correct, that's the fundamental problem. When public network providers > > apply ad hoc protocol filtering, that limits the capabilities and > > opportunities to provide value to the users. For instance, if someone came > > up with a new transport protocol that improves user security by 10x, we > > couldn't deploy it because some network providers would block it. So the > > very security policies that are ostensibly in place to protect the users > > can actually harm them. > > Potentially, I agree. Problem is, each of the players has to determine what > is an acceptable risk. If an ISP wants to keep his infrastructure secure, > he's got the responsibility to make it so, as best he can. He can’t trust > mechanisms that either don’t exist yet or that might introduce their own new > vulnerabilities. Someone says, trust me, these extensions will be for your > own good, and yet he is fully cognizant that those extensions could also be > used in ddos attacks, he'll say thanks but no thanks. Maybe I'll let those > through after we're satisfied with testing and experience. >
Albert, Application developers and stack developers are also players in this game. And while each network provider might have the luxury of only focusing on their customer set, developers have to potentially address the needs of all users across the Internet. This is why network providers' attempts to protect the user are irrelevant to application developers-- without consistency across the Internet this level of security may as well not exist from their perspective. Obviously this situation didn't materialize overnight and it shouldn't be surprising that we've had to implement work-arounds to this problem. For instance, encryption goes a long way in limiting the network's visibility in the packet, but that does have its limits. > > As for what constitutes the "the greater good", like pretty much everything > > else in IETF shouldn't that be something determined by "rough consensus"? > > Yes, but unfortunately, that does not absolve the players of their own > responsibilities. In matters of security, no one will blindly follow "rough > consensus." We are 180 degrees from the Postel principle: No, but it seems like providing reasonable guidance falls under the auspices of IETF. > > "Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others," > is turned on its head, as we know. For system security, you cannot be liberal > in what you accept from others. > > > Even if the consensus were that extension headers need to be deprecated, to > > me that would be better than the current situation where we, specifically > > application and host developers, need to deal with a patchwork of anonymous > > and seemingly arbitrary network provider policies that degenerate the end > > to end services we can provide to users to rely only on least common > > denominator of protocols which we can only deduce by guess work. > > I get your point completely. We don’t have an IETF dictatorship though, so > what happens is that over time, smart people have to decide how best to do > their jobs, given the realities of today. There is a lot of infrastructure > flexibility, and apps, thought really cool when they were developed, that go > unused for just this reason. Such as, you might be better off, in your > network, to use proxy-MLD and to block PIM-SM. Same goes for some or even > much of ICMP. It's the tussle Brian C talks about. It's a proverbial "chicken and the egg" problem. Some network providers will only allow them once there's deployment, but we can't deploy them if they're not allowed through the network. The good news is, we are starting to see deployment at least in limited domains. As experience with them grows and issues are addressed, hopefully the barriers will fall and the vision of an extensible Internet protocol will be realized in time. Tom > > Bert > _______________________________________________ OPSEC mailing list [email protected] https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/opsec
