-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Okay, so I layed out the problem in the my previous email. Now for some
thoughts on the solution.
Essentially, we need a distributed way of uniquely identifying a site that
cannot be spoofed, and does not get tripped up by the many possible
network configurations that occur out in the wild.
I think the way to go is public key cryptography.
Sites would be uniquely identified by their public key (or more likely, a
key fingerprint). VOS will use this site id internally and in all its
communication. Only when VOS encounters a site id that it doesn't
recognize, it asks its peers for the connection information for that site.
When it connects, it verifies that a) the site's public key matches the
key fingerprint, and b) uses a challenge-response protocol to verify that
the site actually has the corresponding private key for the public key.
This has a number of advantages:
1. There is now only a single valid URL for a site, based on the site
public key fingerprint.
2. Different hosts can communicate with a site using multiple protocols,
but between them still use the same URL for that site. (Currently VOS
doesn't support more than one protocol at once because vip:// and vop://
are considered different URLs...)
3. Spoofing is incredibly difficult. The key fingerprint is basically a
hashed-down version of the full public key. In order to forge an
identity, the attacker must discover a public/private key pair where the
public key matches the key fingerprint, then successfully pass the
challenge/response protocol.
4. A public key infrastructure is essential for bootstrapping digitally
signed messages and/or encrypted connections, which is something we need
eventually to support to ensure connection integrity.
The details still need to be fleshed out, and I want to postpone this
until after the 0.23 release (which has now been delayed going on 4
months, what is this, Windows Vista?). However, judging by fact that Lalo
with no coaching has already jumped in with basically the same idea I'm
outlining here, I think it's a winner :-)
[ Peter Amstutz ][ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ][ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ]
[Lead Programmer][Interreality Project][Virtual Reality for the Internet]
[ VOS: Next Generation Internet Communication][ http://interreality.org ]
[ http://interreality.org/~tetron ][ pgpkey: pgpkeys.mit.edu 18C21DF7 ]
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux)
iD8DBQFEJ4BNaeHUyhjCHfcRAnJoAJoCLtDNdcA1WEkJ715kOvHbTc6m/QCdEVs4
ykMRE1QHO+hbd7ubkvCTprQ=
=Xj5b
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
_______________________________________________
vos-d mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d
