Subject: RE: [eap] Proposed Resolution to Issue 243: State Synchronization

From: "Walker, Jesse" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2004 14:53:43 -0700

Fair enough, but that is not the intended sense of the text. The
intended sense is that when you do the security analysis, then you can
tell what each party knows. If in the analysis the two parties do not
agree on each other's identity under the analysis, there is a security
problem. If in the analysis the two parties do not agree on the session
key they designed, there is a security problem. If the analysis shows
the protocol exposes the session key somehow to any third party, then
there is a security problem. If the analysis shows that the parties can
confuse messages from one instance of the protocol with another (aside
from those in the first round trip), then there is a security problem.
The intent of the language is to require that protocols that EAP methods
used intended for use with 802.11 undergo a reasonable amount of
analysis.

-- Jesse

-----Original Message-----
From: Florent Bersani [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Wednesday, July 14, 2004 2:37 PM
To: Walker, Jesse
Cc: [email-masked]; Bernard Aboba
Subject: Re: [eap] Proposed Resolution to Issue 243: State
Synchronization

Jesse,

Walker, Jesse wrote:

>Florent,
>
>Yes, the distributed consensus problem does not admit a solution. But
>this is because the protocol does not complete due to network
>partitions. If the protocol completes, however, there is a certain
>amount of state that must be synchronized, or else the protocol can't
be
>considered secure under any reasonable definition of secure. 
>
I guess this is my problem: you cannot be sure (in some sense) that the 
protocol successfully completed.

For instance, there are some instances in which, despite protected 
result indications, a station might believe it has successfully ended 
the EAP authentication whereas the other fails. This "desynchronization"

is not detected by EAP but by the subsequent protocol.

To take a concrete example:
Peer                                      
Server                                        Attacker

    EAP dialog (e.g. EAP-PSK)
<------------------------------------>

Protected result indication (e.g. Done success delivered by the server 
to the peer)
<-------------------------------------

Protected result indication (e.g. Done success delivered by the server 
to the peer) intercepted by the attacker
-------------->X

EAP-Success
<-----------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------

Protected result indication (e.g. Done success delivered by the server 
to the peer) retransmitted by the server
<-------------------------------------

The EAP peer is "not listening any more" (IINM - I have already asked 
questions on the "nature" of the EAP peer e.g. compared to the nature of

an IKEv2 peer that keeps listening even after successful initial IKE 
exchanges that unfortunately were not answered :-()

You could argue that this does not conflict with the definition because 
in this scenario one of the two parties fail (so the dialog is not 
successful so the state need not be synchronized).

What makes me uncomfortable is that whether success or not has been 
reached is "somehow" part of the state and people might understand, 
under your definition, that it is impossible for a party to believe that

it has succeeded and that its state is synchronized when it is not...

>This is
>what the language "when the EAP method completes successfully" from the
>first sentence is supposed to capture. Can you suggest another way to
>express this concept?
>  
>
No I can't :-( and I am *open* to people telling me that I am the only 
one who has such metaphysical semantic concerns.

I guess my temporary proposed resolution would be to explicitly give an 
example like the one I have given and allude to the distributed 
consensus to say that it is *not* what is meant

>-- Jesse
Florent

>-----Original Message-----
>From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf
>Of Florent Bersani
>Sent: Wednesday, July 14, 2004 1:37 PM
>To: [email-masked]
>Cc: Bernard Aboba
>Subject: Re: [eap] Proposed Resolution to Issue 243: State
>Synchronization
>
>I understand what is meant but I feel concerned that "synchronization
of
>
>state" may be understood as "common knowledge" (which is impossible to 
>reach in a distributed environment with unreliable communications 
>http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/halpern/papers/common_knowledge.pdf - 
>using the paper's terminology page 5, what we want here is E or E2 but 
>not C that we can't provide).
>
>Though I tried I couldn't figure out some simple wording to reflect
this
>
>(but I am still trying to).
>
>Am I the only one that is uncomfortable with this wording?
>
>Bernard Aboba wrote:
>
>  
>
>>The proposed resolution is to change clause [4] of Section 2.2 to the
>>following:
>>
>>[4]  Synchronization of state.  The EAP method state of the EAP peer
>>    
>>
>and
>  
>
>>    server must be synchronized when the EAP method completes
>>    successfully.  This includes the internal state of the
>>    authentication protocol but not the state external to the EAP
>>    method,  such as the negotiation occuring prior to initiation of
>>    the EAP method.  The exact state attributes that are shared may
>>    vary from method to method but typically include the method
>>    
>>
>version
>  
>
>>    number, what credentials were presented and accepted by both
>>    parties, what cryptographic keys are shared and what EAP method
>>    specific attributes were negotiated, such as ciphersuites and
>>    limitations of usage on all protocol state.  Both parties must be
>>    able to distinguish this instance of the protocol from all other
>>    instances of the protocol and they must share the same view of
>>    which state attributes are public and which are private to the two
>>    parties alone.
>>_______________________________________________
>>eap mailing list
>>[email-masked]
>>http://mail.frascone.com/mailman/listinfo/eap
>>
>> 
>>
>>    
>>
>_______________________________________________
>eap mailing list
>[email-masked]
>http://mail.frascone.com/mailman/listinfo/eap
>
>
>  
>

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---

From: Florent Bersani <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 00:11:26 +0200

Walker, Jesse wrote:

>Fair enough, but that is not the intended sense of the text.
>
Right: I was saying that although I finally understood some time ago 
what the text meant, I remember misunderstanding it at first and meeting 
other (non-native English speakers) that had made (or worse, kept making 
the same misunderstanding).

If I am one the only one then fine. If the probability that I am not the 
only is non-negligible, then my suggestion is to try and clarify (and I 
am sorry that I am still unhappy with my own proposed resolution) ;-)

> The
I totally agree. It makes a lot of sense!

>used intended for use with 802.11 undergo a reasonable amount of
I also fully support this.

However, since the "synchronization of state" is not IMHO a standard 
concept (unlike e.g. mutual authentication), I was only trying to avoid 
confusions.