Re: Request for Authenticated but not Encrypted Traffic

[Eliot Lear]

On 30.09.22 05:56, Randy Armstrong (OPC) wrote:

  * A better approach for this particular requirement is to have a
    mechanism which uses encryption but explicitly provides the
    necessary observer decryption capabilities. But that approach has
    been repeatedly rejected in IETF.

I feel that putting backdoors into encryption protocols is a recipe for disaster. Encryption, once applied, should not be breakable or vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks. Applications should make the choice based on the tasks they need to do when a connection is established and have access to APIs that clearly tell them that they are using an unencrypted communication channel.

I think the key point here is that sometimes observability is a feature and not a bug.  This is particularly important in industrial/critical infrastructure.  That observability can be achieved in many ways.  One question is whether the observability itself should itself be authorized.

Eliot

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