Subject: [http-auth] Proposed contribution to the HTTP Authentication working group

From: Jim McAlear <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2012 16:48:34 -0800 (PST)

Hi All –
I’ve been in contact with Yoav about making a contribution
to the HTTP-Auth group based around a paper I presented at the IEEE World
Congress on Internet Security this past summer. Yoav reviewed the paper and
agreed that a submission would be appropriate – so here it is.
Consider a debate proposition: Handguns versus Computers:
which category of device has caused a greater dollar amount of victimization in
the last year? The mere fact that this forms a provocative proposition
demonstrates the huge blind-spot that we as engineers and computer scientists
have suffered from when designing our protocols and products. By contrast, when
one considers the silliness of a similar debate about handguns versus pocket
calculators, we can see that we need to contemplate revolutionary new
directions in our protocols and products to get to where we need to be.
Attached is a document (presentation with extensive notes
below the slides), that describes a potential compartmentalization approach to
the problem of malware access and tampering of critical credentials and
transactions. And though the huge implications of past weaknesses in our
designs means that we need to be open to revolutionary new solutions, you will
see that the proposed solution only requires some minor alterations around the
fringes of computer design. 
And keeping things simple is just what is required here. The
immense complexity of modern operating systems and interacting applications means that it
is well beyond any one brain, or any reasonable group of brains, to contemplate
what exactly is going on at any one time within an arbitrary PC or server –
making for a fundamentally unknowable attack surface. By contrast, the approach
covered here can be understood by a single expert brain – and thus a small
group of skilled experts could achievably contemplate the full attack surface
in a way to harden and fully thwart malware attacks against operations
involving critical credentials and transactions.  
My aim here is to influence the design of a new HTTP
Authentication standard to allow it to be easily used with the configurations
shown in the paper. But just because it could be used doesn’t mean it has to be
used in the ways described. There is always a substantial phase-in time for new
hardware solutions, so the new protocols absolutely need to be functional in
existing hardware as well. But the compartmentalizable approach to protocol
handling will provide great flexibility for industry players to deliver innovative
approaches to protecting critical credentials and transactions – and the
attached paper shows a number of possible configurations, though by now means
is the industry limited to just these.
I hope this submission proves of value to you.
Questions/comments/suggested next steps?  
-        Jim McAlear

---

From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2012 20:34:30 -0500

Firearms cause an annual 30,000 deaths in the US.

I have yet to see a convincing case that HTTP-Auth has been responsible for
any. We have had some murders associated with various forms of bank fraud
but that is in the tens, not the hundreds.

On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 7:48 PM, Jim McAlear <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Hi All –******
> I’ve been in contact with Yoav about making a contribution to the
> HTTP-Auth group based around a paper I presented at the IEEE World Congress
> on Internet Security this past summer. Yoav reviewed the paper and agreed
> that a submission would be appropriate – so here it is.****
> Consider a debate proposition: Handguns versus Computers: which category
> of device has caused a greater dollar amount of victimization in the last
> year? The mere fact that this forms a provocative proposition demonstrates
> the huge blind-spot that we as engineers and computer scientists have
> suffered from when designing our protocols and products. By contrast, when
> one considers the silliness of a similar debate about handguns versus
> pocket calculators, we can see that we need to contemplate revolutionary
> new directions in our protocols and products to get to where we need to be.
> ****
> Attached is a document (presentation with extensive notes below the
> slides), that describes a potential compartmentalization approach to the
> problem of malware access and tampering of critical credentials and
> designs means that we need to be open to revolutionary new solutions, you
> will see that the proposed solution only requires some minor alterations
> around the fringes of computer design. ****
> And keeping things simple is just what is required here. The immense
> complexity of modern operating systems and interacting applications means
> that it is well beyond any one brain, or any reasonable group of brains, to
> contemplate what exactly is going on at any one time within an arbitrary PC
> or server – making for a fundamentally unknowable attack surface. By
> contrast, the approach covered here can be understood by a single expert
> brain – and thus a small group of skilled experts could achievably
> contemplate the full attack surface in a way to harden and fully thwart
> malware attacks against operations involving critical credentials and
> transactions.  ****
> My aim here is to influence the design of a new HTTP Authentication
> standard to allow it to be easily used with the configurations shown in the
> paper. But just because it could be used doesn’t mean it has to be used in
> the ways described. There is always a substantial phase-in time for new
> hardware solutions, so the new protocols absolutely need to be functional
> in existing hardware as well. But the compartmentalizable approach to
> protocol handling will provide great flexibility for industry players to
> deliver innovative approaches to protecting critical credentials and
> transactions – and the attached paper shows a number of possible
> configurations, though by now means is the industry limited to just these.
> ****
> Questions/comments/suggested next steps?  ****
> -        Jim McAlear****
> ** **
>
> _______________________________________________
> http-auth mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/http-auth
>
>

-- 
Website: http://hallambaker.com/