A questionable method for mitigating namespace collisions
draft-wkumari-dnsop-defense-collision-mitigate-01

Network Working Group                                          W. Kumari
Internet-Draft                                                    Google
Intended status: Experimental                              July 15, 2013
Expires: January 16, 2014

       A questionable method for mitigating namespace collisions
           draft-wkumari-dnsop-defense-collision-mitigate-01

Abstract

   This document outlines a method to mitigate the effect of collisions
   in the DNS namespace by providing a means for end users to
   disambiguate the conflict.

   I am publishing this to maybe establish prior art, but not to have
   anyone implement it.

Status of This Memo

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on January 16, 2014.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2013 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

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   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
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   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction / Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Mitigation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   3.  Implementation / Disclaimers  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   5.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   6.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   7.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   Appendix A.  Changes / Author Notes.  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4

1.  Introduction / Background

   Collisions in the DNS occur in multiple ways; one common case is that
   an organization has used an sub-domain (foo) of their primary domain
   (example.com) for corporate infrastructure, and then the string "foo"
   is delegated as a TLD.  When a employee of the organization enters
   'www.foo', are they trying to reach a machine in the internal
   namespace (www.foo.example.com) or the hostname 'www' in the 'foo'
   TLD?

   This document describes a means of disambiguating these, and similar
   cases.

   Implementation of these methods are not recommended; they are
   documented here for defensive purposes / to ensure that if one
   organization decides to implement it, others can as well.

2.  Mitigation

   The mitigation described in this document involves presenting the
   multiple options to the user, and allowing them to indicate which of
   the names is the one they were trying to reach, and then connecting
   to that.

   This could be accomplished in a number of ways, including:

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      Intercepting the resolution requests from the application in a
      "shim" type library

      Replacing the resolver library entirely

      Integrating this type of mitigation into applications (some web
      browsers already do something similar to this)

      Running a resolver locally on the workstation / host that return
      the address of a proxy.

   The mitigation would lookup the name in multiple namespaces, and if a
   conflict is detected, it would then provide a means for the user to
   indicate which one of the colliding names they wish to connect to,
   and return the disambiguated answer to the application.  An
   additional feature could be for the described mitigation to cache the
   user's choice, and / or provide a means to set priorities.

   There are a number of issues with this solution, including but not
   limited to:

   o  There may not be a human available to disambiguate the answer
      (unattended machines, mail servers, etc.).

   o  The human / user may have no idea which is the correct choice.

   o  The additional latency introduced may cause the originating
      application to time out.

   o  The user experience will almost definitely be horrid.

   For these reasons, implementation of this technique is NOT
   RECOMMENDED.

3.  Implementation / Disclaimers

   This document does not reference an implementation as it is unclear
   if the idea is worth implementing - this document exists primarily so
   that searches for prior-art will find this, and to prevent nefarious
   deeds.  The idea itself may be / probably is horrendous, but if
   anyone wants to give it a whirl, everyone should be able to give it a
   whirl.

   This is a very slight mitigation.

   It should not be viewed as a solution to the "namespace collision"
   issue.

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4.  IANA Considerations

   This document contains no IANA considerations.

5.  Security Considerations

   Yes, there probably are some.  Don't do this then.

6.  Acknowledgements

   The authors wish to thank some folk, including Tarquin Ole-
   Biscuitbarrel.

7.  References

Appendix A.  Changes / Author Notes.

   [RFC Editor: Please remove this section before publication.]

   From -00 to -01.

   o  Nothing changed in the template!

Author's Address

   Warren Kumari
   Google
   1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
   Mountain View, CA  94043
   US

   Email: warren@kumari.net

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