On Nov 20, 2011, at 10:34 AM, Alexey Melnikov wrote:

> On 17/11/2011 07:09, Yoav Nir wrote:
>> Hi
> Hi Yaov,
>> I thought I would go over the list of issues for HSTS, and got stuck on the 
>> first one (#4).
>> 
>> The issue headline is as follows "Clarify that HSTS policy applies to entire 
>> host (all ports)"
>> 
>> The text in draft -01 that addresses this is in section 7.2:
>>    Note that the implication of the above steps is that the HSTS policy
>>    applies to all TCP ports on a host advertising the HSTS policy.
>> 
>> I have two issues with this. First, this does not allow to all *TCP* ports, 
>> only HTTP ports. We don't care about some SSH or FTP port. The text above 
>> that paragraph does say this, but I would remove sweeping references to TCP.
> +1.
>> The other issue is that I can think of a use case where it would be OK to 
>> use HTTP (no S) on another port, and<disclosure type="full">  my company 
>> makes a product with such a use case</disclosure>:
>> 
>> A web server might be also running a CA, and that CA may issue a certificate 
>> for the website. But what is more relevant, the CRL DP for that certificate 
>> may be co-located with the web site. CRLs (or OCSP responses) need to 
>> received in the clear, otherwise you have a bootstrapping problem, so in 
>> that case, fetching the CRL needs an exception, even though it is to a host 
>> that advertises HSTS.
> Right.
>> I don't believe this is really an issue for implementers. Fetching CRLs is 
>> usually done in a different context from the fetching of content, and the 
>> same could be said for hash&URL schemes that some are proposing for TLS, but 
>> I think we should explicitly say that this should apply only to HTTP 
>> application content.
> If I were to add some text to describe this, I wouldn't use "HTTP 
> application content", as this is still sounds ambiguos to me.
> 
> Is your recommendation to exclude protocols running over HTTP (as 
> opposed to classical HTTP use)?

I guess so, but web services should probably also be protected under HSTS. CRL 
and OCSP fetching are special cases that are never protected by TLS because 
their content is signed and because it would cause a bootstrap problem.
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