On Oct 16, 2013, at 8:23 AM, Stephen Kent <[email protected]> wrote:
> One reason
> is that these e-mail access protocols are used in enterprise environment 
> where passive 
> wiretapping often not considered a viable attack. 

As someone who remembers the switch to Kerberos and then SSH driven by password 
sniffers in the LAN, including one which got my own password back in the day, I 
find this assumption grossly unrealistic.

You have to REALLY lock-down the LAN, including properly configure high end 
switches with ARP filtering and/or other layer 3 management, for this 
assumption to be even remotely plausible.


Finally, we must consider passive wiretapping an active attack.  The only thing 
which prevents a passive wiretap from modifying (rather than just monitoring) 
traffic is almost invariably the will of the attacker, not any technical 
limitation, since even on-path wiretappers can packet inject, allowing the 
attacker to trivially promote themselves into a MitM situation in almost all 
circumstances.

--
Nicholas Weaver                  it is a tale, told by an idiot,
[email protected]                full of sound and fury,
510-666-2903                                 .signifying nothing
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