Subject: [secdir] secdir review of draft-ietf-karp-threats-reqs-03

From: Stephen Kent <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 14:52:14 -0400

I reviewed this document as part of the security directorate's 
ongoing effort to review all IETF documents being processed by the 
IESG.  These comments were written primarily for the benefit of the 
security area directors.  Document editors and WG chairs should treat 
these comments just like any other last call comments.

This document (draft-ietf-karp-threats-reqs-03) is a document 
intended to help guide protocol development in the KARP WG. The 
abstract states  "This document has two main parts - the first 
describes the threat analysis for attacks against routing protocols' 
transports and the second enumerates the requirements for addressing 
the described threats." The threat analysis is VERY badly written; it 
is a hodgepodge of attack discussions, using mostly non-standard 
security terminology, and peppered with a lot of redundant 
statements. The requirements discussion is somewhat better, but also 
suffers from use of poor terminology, an ad hoc approach to 
organization, and substantial redundancy. I have provided extensive 
comments and some questions in the attached PDF (an MS Word change 
tracked version of the document). The comments are so extensive as to 
not admit discussion in this message.

Section 1.1 provides definitions for terms used in the document, and 
it has a number of problems. I suggest that the authors refer to NIST 
SP 800 series documents for definitions of terms associated with 
cryptographic keying, and to the IETF Security Glossary (RFC 4949) 
for other security terms. Also, many terms are used in the threat 
discussion (Section 2) that should be described based on the 4949 
glossary, rather than what appear to be author-generated definitions.
The goals discussion (Section 1.5) is one of the few sections of the 
document without major problems (other than editing).

This document needs to be sent back to the WG for substantial revision.

Steve