Hi Viktor,

> On 05 Apr 2016, at 01:35, Viktor Dukhovni <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Apr 04, 2016 at 05:24:59PM +0200, Aaron Zauner wrote:
> 
>> As for authentication/TOFU: I see no better proposal than TACK around.
> 
> I was briefly interested in TACK for SMTP before I started work on
> DANE 2 years ago, but gave up after realizing that TACK cannot
> protect the MX records.  Without protecting the MX records you get
> no active attack protection.
> 
> STS proposes to validate MX records (MX host patterns) via HTTPS,
> at which point one can consider various mechanisms for authenticating
> the credentials of the validated MX hosts.

But if I use a TOFU model like TACK then if an attack on any MX record I try to 
resolve happens and I get redirected I end up with a TLS alert instead of a 
classic MITM because the attacker does not control my keys. DOS can happen in 
any case.

> Are you proposing TACK without WebPKI for the STS HTTPS URL or
> WebPKI + TACK pins?  Note also that secondary MX hosts are rarely
> used so senders will often lack prior contact with these, but an
> attacker can block access to the primary MX, at which point you
> get cold-start with a secondary MX (reducing TACK to WebPKI).

WebPKI + TACK essentially (plus an SMTP extension). And again; the TACK draft 
would have to be updated and retrofitted.

Thanks,
Aaron

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