Erik Nordmark wrote:
> One of the issues here is that 5 years from now, if an MN cares about
> the security that the existing (old) MIPv6 correspondent nodes require
> for BUs for that MNs home address, how can the MN express it?

The semantics of a two way protocol can't be encoded in a single
unidirectional bit.

> If you leave this decision up to the CN things are quite different.

The decision will always be up to the CN. Even with the proposed bit,
all the MN can do is indicate its expectations and hope. If the MN
really wants assurance, there will have to be a return message from the
CN that indicates how it will handle any BU. If you are into a
bi-directional protocol, address bits are not the place to encode it.

>
> Perhaps you don't think it is necessary for the MN to be able
> to express
> this.  But it is the packets to that MN that are being "redirected" by
> an attacker.
>

Yes, but there is nothing the MN can do about that without feedback from
the CN about how it will handle a BU. Simply setting a bit does not
assure that the CN will act acording to the MN's intentions.


In draft-montenegro-mipv6sec-bit-method-00.txt, the point in 2.1.1
   The hope is that eventually, Alice will give up and use its weak
   address, at which point, Mallory will let the traffic through,
   presumably, because it can break the protocol:
is simply bogus. If Alice cares about strong, the connection will simply
never happen in the scenario described. In reality the connection will
happen, because the premise in the preceding paragraph
   this is much simpler than rewriting Alice's address with a
   "weak" address and then sending the packet to Bob.
is also bogus. It would be much easier for Mallory to act as a NAT (and
flip the strong/weak bit) than to try to guess that some subsequent weak
address actually belonged to Alice.

The claim on pg 14 furthers this failed line of reasoning:
   Note that an active attacker on the path between Alice and Bob is
   able to clear a set bit.  However, that changes the address, and
   Alice is not going to answer to any possible replies sent by Bob.
   Thus, the bit prevents the attacker from impersonating as Alice and
   fooling Bob to use the less secure protocol.
because it assumes that the operation is unidirectional. All Mallory has
to do is act as a well understood NAT and set it back on the return path
so Alice would be none the wiser.


Tony




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