4 ms·

His suggestion is precisely that---do nothing. From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8897347 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8897347: There is a real

His suggestion is precisely that---do nothing. From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8897347 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8897347: There is a real alternative solution, and it has the virtue of being exceptionally simple: do nothing. The DNS doesn't need to be secured, just like raw IP isn't, nor every individual BGP4 update.

jopsen 9y ago
That's a fair argument. The obvious counter argument is that we need more layers of security. Example: HTTPS + GPG signature gives you two layers, even if most skip one of them.
- tptacek 9y ago
  Even if the "something must be done! this is something!" school of security design was valid, DNSSEC would still be terrifying. The primary use case for DNSSEC is DANE, which replaces the Web PKI CA system with DNS zones. The DNS is a tree-structured PKI the tops of which are controlled explicitly and de jure by world governments, and, unlike the X.509 CAs, Google can't administer a death penalty to .COM.
  - iamnothere 9y ago
    This is critical. We should not be pushing technology that further bolsters the power of central authorities, especially in an age of increasing authoritarianism.
- jcranmer 9y ago
  Adding more layers doesn't necessarily add security. Jokes about ROT13'ing twice, or the meet-in-the-middle attacks on Double-DES are well-known examples of it. What would your security policy be if only one of the signatures matches and the other one fails? More importantly, if you're setting your policy to be tolerant of as-of-yet unspecified algorithms, you run the risk of the attacker being able to screw you over in the weak protocol and corrupt the bits of the strong protocol to an unknown protocol.
- brians 9y ago
  An important thing about layers, about defense in depth, is that you can’t even begin to attack one mechanism until you’ve defeated its predecessors. DANE + TLS doesn’t give you layers. If I can subvert your DNSSEC, I can endorse a fresh TLS key, and win. If I can subvert your TLS, I win. This is defense in breadth, a strategy known mostly for its close association with defeat.
bluejekyll 9y ago
It depends on your use case. In the context of TLS this is true. In the context of wanting DNS to stand on it's own for use cases outside TLS, then having signed and validated data in DNS is valueable.
pathseeker 9y ago
>nor every individual BGP4 update. @tptacek, can you explain that? Without signing AS path changes with BGPSEC you get path-lengthening and path-shortening attacks which work just as well as subprefix hijacks. BGP hijacking is still a massive problem and RPKI alone isn't close to enough to fix it.

jopsen 9y ago

That's a fair argument. The obvious counter argument is that we need more layers of security. Example: HTTPS + GPG signature gives you two layers, even if most skip one of them.

tptacek 9y ago
Even if the "something must be done! this is something!" school of security design was valid, DNSSEC would still be terrifying. The primary use case for DNSSEC is DANE, which replaces the Web PKI CA system with DNS zones. The DNS is a tree-structured PKI the tops of which are controlled explicitly and de jure by world governments, and, unlike the X.509 CAs, Google can't administer a death penalty to .COM.
- iamnothere 9y ago
  This is critical. We should not be pushing technology that further bolsters the power of central authorities, especially in an age of increasing authoritarianism.
jcranmer 9y ago
Adding more layers doesn't necessarily add security. Jokes about ROT13'ing twice, or the meet-in-the-middle attacks on Double-DES are well-known examples of it. What would your security policy be if only one of the signatures matches and the other one fails? More importantly, if you're setting your policy to be tolerant of as-of-yet unspecified algorithms, you run the risk of the attacker being able to screw you over in the weak protocol and corrupt the bits of the strong protocol to an unknown protocol.
brians 9y ago
An important thing about layers, about defense in depth, is that you can’t even begin to attack one mechanism until you’ve defeated its predecessors. DANE + TLS doesn’t give you layers. If I can subvert your DNSSEC, I can endorse a fresh TLS key, and win. If I can subvert your TLS, I win. This is defense in breadth, a strategy known mostly for its close association with defeat.

bluejekyll 9y ago

It depends on your use case. In the context of TLS this is true. In the context of wanting DNS to stand on it's own for use cases outside TLS, then having signed and validated data in DNS is valueable.

pathseeker 9y ago

>nor every individual BGP4 update. @tptacek, can you explain that? Without signing AS path changes with BGPSEC you get path-lengthening and path-shortening attacks which work just as well as subprefix hijacks. BGP hijacking is still a massive problem and RPKI alone isn't close to enough to fix it.