Re: New version of draft-yasskin-http-origin-signed-responses-02

On Tue, Jan 30, 2018 at 11:50 AM, Jana Iyengar <jri@google.com> wrote:

> I'm watching from the sidelines, but a clarification question:
>
> Thanks for taking a look at this. However, I don't think it really
>> addresses the concern that I raised, which is not solely about talking to
>> the origin but about having a digital signature from the origin server
>> substitute for an HTTPS connection to the origin.
>>
>
> In the current world, client does DNS lookup, establishes a TCP
> connection, creates a secure channel to an authenticated origin, and gets
> content from it over this channel.
>

Yes.


Per my understanding, the proposal here basically removes the DNS lookup +
> TCP connection to the origin, but creates a secure channel to an
> authenticated proxy, and separately authenticates content that it gets from
> it.
>

Well, the proxy is largely irrelevant here, as the client has no particular
relationship with it. From a security perspective, the client gets some
content from a random location and trusts it because it's digitally signed
by the origin server.


The client would previously have authenticated the channel to the origin
> and gotten any content from it. In this proposal, a client does a TLS
> handshake to secure the channel to the proxy, and then authenticates
> content that comes over it. Is this understanding correct? If so, it
> *seems* equivalent security to HTTPS.
>

I don't think that's true. At *most* it provided data origin
authentication/integrity (feel free to argue non-repudiation, but that's
not really relevant here). It doesn't provide confidentiality to the origin
server at all.

-Ekr