The point with opportunistic TLS is its OPPORTUNISTIC, if there is any failure 
it will fall back to send without TLS. In opportunistic TLS the sender does no 
checks whatsoever on the certificate so why would it care about CT?

Besides the whole STARTTLS negation is already subject to downgrade attacks. 
Some firewalls actively block the STARTTLS negotiation.

From: Phillip Hallam-Baker [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2014 1:48 PM
To: Trevor Freeman
Cc: Paul Hoffman; Ben Laurie; [email protected]; Daniel Kahn Gillmor
Subject: Re: [Trans] CT for opportunistic STARTTLS in SMTP

The idea seems to be that there is an append only log server that clients are 
gong to be checking. So we can use that to stuff security policy information 
into the system.

The problem is that the client only checks the CT logs in the normal case after 
it has decided to use TLS.

So there is certainly a value in using an append only log to publish security 
policy data and in fact I do this in PPE. But it is only a solution to the 
downgrade attack problem with a lot of extra infrastructure. For example an 
Omnibroker scanning the CT log and using that to build the connection profile.




On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 2:47 PM, Trevor Freeman 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
I don't see the relevance of CT to opportunistic STARTTLS.

Opportunistic STARTTLS is a feature of the sender whereby the sender picks 
STARTTLS if offered, but otherwise will send the email.  If the alternative was 
send unprotected over plain TCP, you may as well negotiate TLS if offered.  
Moreover, if TLS negotiation fails for whatever reason, the send remembers the 
fact and done not attempt to negotiate next time.

The sender does have a list of SMTP domains where it requires TLS 
authentication, but that is mandatory  STARTTLS.

-----Original Message-----
From: Trans [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] On 
Behalf Of Paul Hoffman
Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2014 9:54 AM
To: Ben Laurie
Cc: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>; Daniel Kahn Gillmor
Subject: Re: [Trans] CT for opportunistic STARTTLS in SMTP

On Feb 25, 2014, at 9:36 AM, Ben Laurie 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:

>> At the earlier CT meeting, I think someone proposed that there could be a 
>> check that the cert was in actual use at the place it said it was.
>
> That does not seem effective to me.

It is more effective than doing nothing; it may not be effective enough to 
prevent overwhelm by spam. I was just pointing it out as something that was 
proposed, not well-thought-out.

--Paul Hoffman
_______________________________________________
Trans mailing list
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/trans

_______________________________________________
Trans mailing list
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/trans



--
Website: http://hallambaker.com/
_______________________________________________
Trans mailing list
[email protected]
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/trans

Reply via email to