Re: breaking TLS (Was: Re: multiplexing -- don't do it)

On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 1:06 AM, Stephen Farrell
<stephen.farrell@cs.tcd.ie>wrote:

>
> Shortening a bit...
>
>
> On 04/02/2012 11:43 PM, Mike Belshe wrote:
>
>>
>> The alternative is SSL MITM - where the corp IT guy now just has to go
>> hack
>> a bunch of CA stuff into his environment to trick his users and their
>> browsers.  Is this really better?  Do we want this as our future?  Or
>> would
>> a more explicit and controlled environment be better?
>>
>
> False dichotomy anyone? ;-)
>
> Is it clear that the corp IT guy is really benefiting from the MITM? I'm
> not saying they are not benefiting, but I've not seen the evidence.
>

Sorry, I'm tired and sleepy, but I don't see what's not obvious about this.
Yes, the IT guy is benefiting. He's able to implement organizational policy
(e.g.: prevent leakage of corporate secrets or preventing students from
browsing pr0n) by doing SSL MITM.


>
> There is plenty of evidence that people sell this kind of thing and that
> people use this kind of thing, but if its trivially defeated we're into
> security theatre.


I'm not sure what you mean by "trivially defeated", but if you mean whether
or not SSL is subverted by these MITM boxes, then it's obvious that this is
already the case. See
https://www.corelan.be/index.php/2012/03/14/blackhat-eu-2012-day-1/ for
example. The SSL MITM proxy did not do any certificate validation.


> If that were the case, then maybe e2e security isn't worth giving
> up for so little.
>
>
>  I don't disagree with your concerns, of course.  This work needs a lot of
>> scrutiny.  But I do think we can improve overall SSL adoption if we
>> recognize what people are going to do without these types of features.
>>
>
> The problem is, scrutiny will not enable us to square a circle, which
> may be what's involved here.
>
> S
>
>
>
>> Mike
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Stephen.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>> I do understand that there are percieved-real requirements here for
>>>>> enterprise middleboxes to snoop but we've not gotten IETF consensus to
>>>>> support that kind of feature in our protocols.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> sure we do. 2616 already contemplates and supports proxies - just not
>>>> with https.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Stephen.
>>>>> PS: I'm not angling for better http auth here. Even if we get that
>>>>> there will be many passwords and other re-usable credentials in use
>>>>> for pretty much ever and the argument against breaking TLS will remain.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Auth in fact may be the answer to the issue of trust for a server to
>>>> place in a proxy (re the client cert issue).
>>>>
>>>> There may not be a good answer for client certs, and it may be the only
>>>> way to support them is to continue to tunnel.
>>>>
>>>> At least they are not that prevalent so that in cases where they are
>>>> required, tunneling can be allowed.
>>>>
>>>> Adrien
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>  Mike
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  The proxy can still not see the facebook traffic in the clear so the
>>>>>>> admin will still either need to block facebook entirely or do a MITM.
>>>>>>> Peter
>>>>>>> On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 5:11 PM, Mike Belshe<mike@belshe.com>  wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 2:08 PM, Adrien W. de
>>>>>>>> Croy<adrien@qbik.com>wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> ------ Original Message ------ From: "Mike
>>>>>>>>> Belshe"<mike@belshe.com>  To: "Adrien W. de Croy"<adrien@qbik.com>
>>>>>>>>> Cc: "Amos Jeffries"<squid3@treenet.co.nz****>;"ietf-http-wg@w3.org
>>>>>>>>> "<
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> ietf-http-wg@w3.org>  Sent: 3/04/2012 8:52:22 a.m. Subject: Re:
>>>>>>>>> multiplexing -- don't do it
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 1:43 PM, Adrien W. de Croy<
>>>>>>>>> <adrien@qbik.com>  adrien@qbik.com>  wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> ------ Original Message ------ From: "Mike
>>>>>>>>>> Belshe"<mike@belshe.com>mike@****belshe.com<mike@belshe.com>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 6:57 AM, Amos Jeffries<
>>>>>>>>>> <squid3@treenet.co.nz><squid3@****treenet.co.nz<squid3@**
>>>>>>>>>> treenet.co.nz <squid3@treenet.co.nz>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>  squid3@treenet.co.nz>  wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>  On 1/04/2012 5:17 a.m., Adam Barth wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 4:54 AM, Mark Nottingham wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>  On 31/03/2012, at 1:11 PM, Mike Belshe wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> For the record - nobody wants to avoid using port 80 for new
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>  protocols. I'd love to! There is no religious reason that we
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> don't - its just that we know, for a fact, that we can't do
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> it without subjecting a non-trivial number of users to hangs,
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> data corruption, and other errors. You might think its ok for
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> someone else's browser to throw reliability out the window,
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> but nobody at Microsoft, Google, or Mozilla has been willing
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> to do that…
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>  Mike -
>>>>>>>>>>>>> I don't disagree on any specific point (as I think you know),
>>>>>>>>>>>>> but I would observe that the errors you're talking about can
>>>>>>>>>>>>> themselves be viewed as transient. I.e., just because they
>>>>>>>>>>>>> occur in experiments now, doesn't necessarily mean that they
>>>>>>>>>>>>> won't be fixed in the infrastructure in the future --
>>>>>>>>>>>>> especially if they generate a lot of support calls, because
>>>>>>>>>>>>> they break a lot MORE things than they do now.
>>>>>>>>>>>>> Yes, there will be a period of pain, but I just wanted to
>>>>>>>>>>>>> highlight one of the potential differences between deploying a
>>>>>>>>>>>>> standard and a single-vendor effort. It's true that we can't
>>>>>>>>>>>>> go too far here; if we specify a protocol that breaks horribly
>>>>>>>>>>>>> 50% of the time, it won't get traction. However, if we have a
>>>>>>>>>>>>> good base population and perhaps a good fallback story, we
>>>>>>>>>>>>> *can* change things.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>  That's not our experience as browser vendors. If browsers
>>>>>>>>>>>> offer
>>>>>>>>>>>> an HTTP/2.0 that has a bad user experience for 10% of users,
>>>>>>>>>>>> then major sites (e.g., Twitter) won't adopt it. They don't
>>>>>>>>>>>> want to punish their users any more than we do.
>>>>>>>>>>>> Worse, if they do adopt the new protocol, users who have
>>>>>>>>>>>> trouble will try another browser (e.g., one that doesn't
>>>>>>>>>>>> support HTTP/2.0 such as IE 9), observe that it works, and
>>>>>>>>>>>> blame the first browser for being buggy. The net result is that
>>>>>>>>>>>> we lose a user and no pressure is exerted on the intermediaries
>>>>>>>>>>>> who are causing the problem in the first place.
>>>>>>>>>>>> These are powerful market force that can't really be ignored.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> So the takeway there is pay attention to the intermediary people
>>>>>>>>>>> when they say something cant be implemented (or won't scale
>>>>>>>>>>> reasonably).
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I agree we should pay attention to scalability - and we have.
>>>>>>>>>> Please don't disregard that Google servers switched to SPDY with
>>>>>>>>>> zero additional hardware (the google servers are fully conformant
>>>>>>>>>> http/1.1 proxies with a lot more DoS logic than the average
>>>>>>>>>> site). I know, some people think Google is some magical place
>>>>>>>>>> where scalability defies physics and is not relevant, but this
>>>>>>>>>> isn't true. Google is just like every other site, except much
>>>>>>>>>> much bigger. If we had a 10% increase in server load with SPDY,
>>>>>>>>>> Google never could have shipped it. Seriously, who would roll out
>>>>>>>>>> thousands of new machines for an experimental protocol? Nobody.
>>>>>>>>>> How would we have convinced the executive team "this will be
>>>>>>>>>> faster", if they were faced with some huge cap-ex bill? Doesn't
>>>>>>>>>> sound very convincing, does it? In my mind, we have already
>>>>>>>>>> proven clearly that SPDY scales just fine.
>>>>>>>>>> But I'm open to other data. So if you have a SPDY implementation
>>>>>>>>>> and want to comment on the effects on your server, lets hear it!
>>>>>>>>>> And I'm not saying SPDY is free. But, when you weigh costs (like
>>>>>>>>>> compression and framing) against benefits (like 6x fewer
>>>>>>>>>> connections), there is no problem. And could we make improvements
>>>>>>>>>> still? Of course. But don't pretend that these are the critical
>>>>>>>>>> parts of SPDY. These are the mice nuts.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> For a forward proxy, there are several main reasons to even exist:
>>>>>>>>>> a) implement and enforce access control policy b) audit usage c)
>>>>>>>>>> cache
>>>>>>>>>> you block any of these by bypassing everything with TLS, you have
>>>>>>>>>> a non-starter for corporate environments. Even if currently
>>>>>>>>>> admins kinda turn a blind eye (because they have to) and allow
>>>>>>>>>> port 443 through, as more and more traffic moves over to 443,
>>>>>>>>>> more pressure will come down from management to control it.
>>>>>>>>>> Best we don't get left with the only option being MITM.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> In my talk at the IETF, I proposed a solution to this.
>>>>>>>>> Browsers need to implement SSL to trusted proxies, which can do
>>>>>>>>> all of the a/b/c that you suggested above. This solution is better
>>>>>>>>> because the proxy becomes explicit rather than implicit. This
>>>>>>>>> means that the user knows of it, and it IT guys knows of it. If
>>>>>>>>> there are problems, it can be configured out of the system.
>>>>>>>>> Implicit proxies are only known the the IT guy (maybe), and can't
>>>>>>>>> be configured out from a client. The browser can be made to honor
>>>>>>>>> HSTS so that end-to-end encryption is always enforced
>>>>>>>>> appropriately.
>>>>>>>>> Further, proxies today already need this solution, even without
>>>>>>>>> SPDY. Traffic is moving to SSL already, albeit slowly, and
>>>>>>>>> corporate firewalls can't see it today. Corporate firewall admins
>>>>>>>>> are forced to do things like block facebook entirely to prevent
>>>>>>>>> data leakage. But, with this solution, they could allow facebook
>>>>>>>>> access and still protect their IP. (Or they could block it if they
>>>>>>>>> wanted to, of course).
>>>>>>>>> Anyway, I do agree with you that we need better solutions so that
>>>>>>>>> we don't incur more SSL MITM. Many corporations are already
>>>>>>>>> looking for expensive SSL MITM solutions (very complex to rollout
>>>>>>>>> due to key management) because of the reasons I mention above, and
>>>>>>>>> its a technically inferior solution.
>>>>>>>>> So lets do it!
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I basically agree with all the above, however there is the ISP
>>>>>>>>> intercepting proxy to think about.
>>>>>>>>> Many ISPs here in NZ have them, it's just a fact of life when
>>>>>>>>> you're 150ms from the US and restricted bandwidth. Pretty much all
>>>>>>>>> the big ISPs have intercepting caching proxies.
>>>>>>>>> There's just no way to make these work... period...
>>>>>>>>> unless the ISP is to
>>>>>>>>> a) try and support all their customers to use an explicit proxy,
>>>>>>>>> or b) get all their customers to install a root cert so they can
>>>>>>>>> do MITM.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>  Maybe we need a better way to force a client to use a proxy, and
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> take the pain out of it for administration. And do it securely
>>>>>>>>> (just remembering why 305 was deprecated).
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Do proxy pacs or dhcp work for this?
>>>>>>>> Note that we also need the browsers to honor HSTS end-to-end, even
>>>>>>>> if we turn on "GET https://". Mike
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>  Adrien
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Mike
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>  Adrien
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Mike
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>  With plenty of bias, I agree.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> AYJ
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>