Internet DRAFT - draft-hildebrand-middlebox-erosion
draft-hildebrand-middlebox-erosion
Network Working Group J. Hildebrand
Internet-Draft Cisco Systems, Inc.
Intended status: Informational P. McManus
Expires: May 14, 2015 Mozilla
November 10, 2014
Erosion of the moral authority of transparent middleboxes
draft-hildebrand-middlebox-erosion-01
Abstract
Many middleboxes on the Internet attempt to add value to the
connections that traverse that point on the network. Problems in
their implementations erode the moral authority that otherwise might
accrue to the legitimate value that they add.
Status of This Memo
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1. Introduction
There are several middlebox use cases that typically stand in the way
of better encryption helping to mitigate perpass-style attacks.
o Local caching
o Enterprise policy controls, including Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
and monitoring for acceptable use
o Service provider acceleration of mobile data
o Network management and quality of service routing
o Authorization and billing of network services
These use cases may cause third parties to an otherwise end-to-end
conversation to have legitimate legal and moral rights that grant
them participation in the conversation. This document discusses
several reasons why the legitimacy of these use cases is undermined
in the minds of some who build other products for the Internet.
2. Similarity to attacks
Some middlebox capabilities are currently implemented using the same
mechanisms employed by attackers, including passive capturing of
plaintext data, active impersonation, and denial of service.
Further, some services are legitimate in one context but illegitimate
in another - and the transparent nature of the middleboxes creates
security problems separating those problem domains.
It is difficult to design protocols that simultaneously prevent a
given vulnerability and simultaneously selectively allow legitimate
access, and arguments that particular attacks cannot therefore be
mitigated are greeted by end-users with skepticism - particularly
when the benefit added by the middlebox does not accrue directly to
those users.
3. Unintentional breakage
The experiences of living with a wide variety of middleboxes in the
real world lead developers to realize that they all have defects that
go years without being addressed. Even when the vendor fixes a given
bug, software is updated so infrequently at this layer that often the
bug must just be worked around.
Developers that have to add multiple special cases to their products
as they discover every new way to incorrectly implement what they
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previously thought were simple protocols often overreact by using
protocols that are harder to manage, have worse security properties,
or perform poorly.
Even middleboxes that are operating correctly become design
constraints that inhibit end to end innovation because of their
centralized model. A middlebox that inserts itself into all web
traffic on a network but only speaks HTTP/1.1 will not allow the
evolution of any device on that network beyond that state.
4. Support cost appropriation
When a middlebox subtly fails, end users never call the entity that
deployed the middlebox, much less the vendor that built that box.
Indeed, the nature of a transparent middlebox makes it very difficult
to even diagnose the error for a professional. Instead, they file a
support request with the services that they are trying to access.
The team that developed that service typically spends many hours
finally tracking down the issue, only to finally find the problem
with the middlebox. The original end user never has the authority to
fix the middlebox or even opt out of using it. Instead they demand
the service owner work around the problem. The service implementor
may not have any more control than the end user, so too often the
result is that new technologies have to be abandoned because they are
not backwards compatible with middlebox infrastructure that neither
the end user nor service operator has direct control over. This
dynamic holds back Internet evolution.
When the costs associated with broken behavior are not paid by the
developers of that behavior, it is easy for those developers to
assume that everyone is happy with their product.
5. Other monetary incentives
Developers of new services will often try to make their network
traffic as similar as possible to an existing essential service.
This approach maximizes the chances that they will be able to develop
a user base, however it can stress middleboxes beyond their design
constraints causing them to fail in new ways.
When middlebox developers bring about their own downfall by pushing
application providers outside of natural design patterns, they do not
impress the community with their desire to be trustable elements of
the Internet architecture.
6. Conclusions
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When the moral authority of middleboxes is eroded, arguments by their
developers to allow unfettered access to the plaintext of traffic
that traverses those boxes may be called into question.
As an industry, we should look for other mechanisms to provide
legitimate third-party value. Explicitly addressed intermediaries
offer an alternative to transparent middleboxes. Addressing the
harder problems of service discovery and authorization would make
these services more effective, robust, and secure than their existing
middlebox counterparts.
7. References
Authors' Addresses
Joe Hildebrand
Cisco Systems, Inc.
Email: jhildebr@cisco.com
Patrick McManus
Mozilla
Email: pmcmanus@mozilla.com
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