Re: New Version Notification for draft-thomson-http-encryption-00.txt

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In message <CABkgnnXMjTueG1LXXUQkd-UTdyEsNBuw2wdrzEzxuUGzo=wJiw@mail.gmail.com>
, Martin Thomson writes:
>On 12 May 2015 at 10:17, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@phk.freebsd.dk> wrote:
>> Which is why we should think about "Accept-Encryption"
>
>I think that the problem you are concerned with is why the Key
>draft [1] exists.
>
>In this context, I don't see responses actually varying based on the
>Accept-Encoding header field.  Servers will encrypt based on their
>needs more so than in reaction to clients claiming support.

Think Internet-Of-Junk.  Not everybody may support the same crypto
algorithms, for reason of size, cpu-power, electrical power or laws.

Being able to tell the server what the client can (and is allowed
to) cope with, the server can better pick the right algo.

>In fact, if we were to rely solely on Accept-Encoding (or create
>Accept-Encryption), then we create the potential for a downgrade
>attack if we ever need to define an alternative encryption encoding to
>address flaws in this one.

It's still the servers responsibility to enforce the overall policy
of encryption and laugh at such attacks.  (One logical reaction:
reply "use SSL instead then")

Also:  Without Accept-Encryption (of some kind), we have no way to
phase in new and stronger crypto later on.

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk@FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe    
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.

Received on Tuesday, 12 May 2015 17:50:31 UTC