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A lightweight security extension for the Unidirectional Lightweight Encapsulation (ULE) protocol
draft-noisternig-ipdvb-ulesec-01

Document Type Expired Internet-Draft (individual)
Expired & archived
Authors Michael Noisternig , Bernhard Collini-Nocker
Last updated 2008-07-14
RFC stream (None)
Intended RFC status (None)
Formats
Stream Stream state (No stream defined)
Consensus boilerplate Unknown
RFC Editor Note (None)
IESG IESG state Expired
Telechat date (None)
Responsible AD (None)
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This Internet-Draft is no longer active. A copy of the expired Internet-Draft is available in these formats:

Abstract

The Unidirectional Lightweight Encapsulation (ULE) protocol is an efficient and extensible transport mechanism for IP over MPEG-2 networks. Such networks are often operated on broadcast wireless channels, and are thus specifically vulnerable to attacks. Passive attacks, such as eaves-dropping, are simple to perform and emphasize the importance of security support within ULE. This document defines a mandatory security extension for the ULE protocol that is designed with the aim of being conservative in bandwidth consumption and lightweight in the sense that it allows for implementation in low-cost, resource-scarce (mobile) receiver devices. The extension may be easily adapted to the Generic Stream Encapsulation (GSE) protocol, which uses the same extension header mechanism. The document describes the format of the security extension header, specifies default security algorithms to be used with this extension, and gives detailed processing descriptions for devices implementing the security extension. Conventions used in this document The following DVB specific terms are taken from [RFC4326] and recapitulated here for easy lookup: DVB: Digital Video Broadcast. A framework and set of associated standards published by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) for the transmission of video, audio, and data using the ISO MPEG-2 standard [MPEG2]. MPEG-2: A set of standards specified by the Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and standardized by the International Standards Organization (ISO/IEC 13818-1) [MPEG2] and ITU-T [H222]. NPA: Network Point of Attachment. In this document, refers to a 48- bit destination address (resembling an IEEE MAC address) within the MPEG-2 transmission network that is used to identify individual receivers or groups of receivers. PDU: Protocol Data Unit. Examples of a PDU include Ethernet frames, IPv4 or IPv6 datagrams, and other network packets. PID: Packet Identifier [MPEG2]. A 13-bit field carried in the header of TS cells. This is used to identify the TS Logical Channel to which a TS cell belongs [MPEG2]. SNDU: SubNetwork Data Unit. An encapsulated PDU sent as an MPEG-2 payload unit. TS: Transport Stream [MPEG2]. A method of transmission at the MPEG-2 level using TS cells; it represents layer 2 of the ISO/OSI reference model. TS Logical Channel: Transport Stream Logical Channel. In this document, this term identifies a channel at the MPEG-2 level [MPEG2]. All packets sent over a TS Logical Channel carry the same PID value. ULE: Unidirectional Lightweight Encapsulation [RFC4326]. A protocol that encapsulates PDUs into SNDUs that are sent in a series of TS cells using a single TS Logical Channel. Terms and abbreviations from cryptography are explained when they first appear within this document. All numbers encoded in protocols are to be interpreted in network byte order. The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL", when appearing within this document, are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].

Authors

Michael Noisternig
Bernhard Collini-Nocker

(Note: The e-mail addresses provided for the authors of this Internet-Draft may no longer be valid.)