"Weak" enrollment models (was Re: [ietf-enroll] Charter ...)

[Pekka Nikander]

[Playing catch up with e-mail]

Russ,

Russ Housley wrote:
> I understand your points, and it may not be possible to separate
> these completely.  One also needs to consider the SSH model, where
> the public key is provided on the first transaction.  Once you have
> the public key, you know that you are talking to the same party, even
> if it is not the right party.  This forces the attacker to be
> involved from the very beginning or be locked out forever.

About a year ago, Jari Arkko and I wrote a little strawman study
about the cost/benefit factors behind the SSH and other similar
"weak" authentication or enrollment models.   The paper, together
with the discussion that was held at the workshop, will be
published in the Cambridge Security Workshop proceedings (LNCS
series); a pre-print of the paper is available at my web site:

   http://www.tml.hut.fi/~pnr/publications/cam2002b.pdf

(Sorry about the poor font quality in the PDF)

--Pekka Nikander