Re: #445: Transfer-Codings

On 24 April 2014 02:26,  <K.Morgan@iaea.org> wrote:
> however the uncompressed data from separate frames MUST NOT be merged.
> Merging uncompressed data from separate frames creates a shared compression
> context that could allow an attacker to recover secret data if merging
> combines confidential and attacker-controlled data.

My first impression was that you have too much text there, but this
point is valuable.  I had to ship -12, but I'll add this to the
editor's copy in preparation for -13.

Note that this is only an issue if the merged data is subsequently compressed.

I think that the text could more succinctly say:

[...] frames that are separately compressed cannot be merged into a
single compressed frame.  Either could result in the compression of
secret and attacker-controlled data within the same compression
context.  Compressed frames MAY be decompressed, in whole or part.

I'm less certain about making the downstream intermediary point so
explicit.   There's a balance to be struck.  There are plenty of other
places where our prohibitions are less-well explained than this
already is.  This is a fractal landscape, and we try to avoid
exhaustively exploring all the minute details in the interests of
readability and accessibility.

Received on Thursday, 24 April 2014 14:57:30 UTC