Network Working Group U. Chunduri, Ed.
Internet-Draft A. Clemm
Intended status: Informational Huawei Technologies
Expires: January 4, 2018 M. Menth
University of Tuebingen
July 3, 2017
Identity Use Cases in IDEAS
draft-ccm-ideas-identity-use-cases-01
Abstract
IDentity-EnAbled networkS (IDEAS) introduce the concept of Identity
into networking. This concept includes an Identity/Identifier split,
which complements existing Locator/Identifier separation technologies
and benefit from both novel communication paradigms. This document
summarizes some conceptual use cases to illustrate the usefulness of
IDEAS.
Requirements Language
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC2119 [RFC2119].
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
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Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on January 4, 2018.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2017 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1. Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Need for Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Identity (IDy) in IDEAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. Identity Use Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4.1. Privacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.2. Unified Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.2.1. Access Restriction Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.3. Uses of Metadata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.4. Access Security and Manageability . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.5. Delay-Tolerant Networking (DTN) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
8.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1. Introduction
An Internet Protocol (IP) [RFC0791] address signifies both a
Communication Entity's (Section 1.1) Location and its Identification.
Location and Identification separation protocols, for example HIP
[RFC7401] and LISP [RFC6830], introduced the concept of Identifier
and separated this information from the Locator (IP address in this
case).
The Location/Identifier split separates Location and Identification
function for a specific networking device, i.e., the Identifier
denotes a device while the Locator denotes a routable network
interface. With Location/Identifier split, multiple benefits in
networking can be realized, e.g., in the areas of mobility, network
virtualization, traffic engineering, security, software-defined
networking, and others.
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IDEAS goes one step further and makes a distinction between Identity
and Identifier, and introduces an Identity/Identifier split. The
abstraction of an Identity and the corresponding split from
Identifiers can bring additional benefits that can be combined with
Location/Identifier separation. The abstracted Identity still
corresponds to network layer, like Locator/Identifier and not related
to transport or application Identities.
These potential benefits are in the areas of privacy i.e., the
ability to have multiple identifiers for the same entity which can be
used for anonymous communication, identity-based access controls at
the Mapping System (MS), and application of various policies
uniformly across Identifiers pertaining to an Identity. Identity
also enables various management aspects at the mapping system
efficiently.
1.1. Acronyms
Communication Entity: A device used for IP-based (in some case
Layer-2 based) data communication
Entity: Refer to Communication Entity
GRIDS: GeneRic Identity Services - a mapping and Identity
services system that will be defined in the context of IDEAS.
This goes beyond traditional mapping of Location/Identifier
and can include Identity based services(e.g. policy/metadata/
grouping service).
HIP: Host Identity Protocol
IDf: Identifier - denotes information to unambiguously
identify an entity within a given scope. Examples HIP HIT
[RFC7401] and LISP EID [RFC6830]. There is no constraint on
the format, obfuscation or routability of an Identifier.
IDy: Identity - a unique identifier for a communications
entity that MAY be assigned by the GRIDS-provider and that is
used by the provider to identify and authenticate the
communications entity, but that is not revealed in the packet
headers.
LOC: Locator, for example, IPv4/IPv6 based
LISP: The Locator/ID Separation Protocol
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Metadata: Metadata is data about an Identity. The metadata
may contain information such as the nature of the entity for
example or opaque information about the Identity
MS: Traditional Mapping Server for LOC/IDf protocols (e.g.
HIP RVS, LISP-DDT)
2. Need for Identity
An entity can use multiple Identifiers for anonymous communication in
the data plane [I-D.farinacci-lisp-eid-anonymity] or for other
reasons, for example to representing different locators
simultaneously. When multiple Identifiers are in use, the notion of
Layer-3 Identity to represent the communication entity uniquely helps
in following ways.
a. Unique and Permanent Identity representing the entity enables
authentication (AUTH) with the mapping and Identity services
infrastructure. While it is possible to do AUTH on Identifiers
those are not permanently associated to the entity. Moreover,
AUTH operation is a relatively an expensive and inefficient
procedure (compared to LOC resolution for example) and can cause
excessive startup delays for lot of applications.
b. Data plane anonymization allows entities to communicate
anonymously from the outside observers. Identity provides de-
anonymization for various data plane ephemeral Identifiers, if
required, and enables resolution of which entity is behind these
identifiers for legitimate users (entities itself in some cases).
c. Identity enables managing access restriction policies and
metadata (which MAY represent type of the entity in some cases)
regardless of which Identifier used in data plane communication
by the entity. Without Identity any access restrictions kept on
Identifiers would be easily invalidated, if the peer entity
simply changes the Identifier.
The above requirements for having a stable network layer Identity is
further detailed in Section 4. Section 4 also shows how another
abstraction of Identity from Identifiers help to enable various
services in the data communication with in IDEAS.
3. Identity (IDy) in IDEAS
An Identity uniquely identifies a Communication Entity. IDy MAY be
unicoded or an ASCII string, which MAY have a partial structure and
MAY be given by the provider of the IDy services. Typically, an IDy
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SHOULD NOT be revealed unencrypted on the wire or shared with other
entities to make IDy a private enclave.
IDy is used for authentication of the Communication Entity and it MAY
be represented by multiple Identifiers (IDf's) in the data plane.
IDy can be seen as a 'permanent Identifier' of a communication entity
with certain properties (for example not used in data plane) and with
certain additional attributes which are common to all Identifiers of
a communication entity.
Also for privacy reasons, access to the [IDy, IDf] mapping
information may be restricted to a defined set of communication
entities. These communication patterns require new, GeneRic ID
Services (GRIDS), which map these Identifiers to their Identities and
provide additional services based on the Identities (apart from the
traditional Identifier/Location mapping). In the following
(Section 4) various IDy use cases point out benefits of Identity in
IDEAS.
The following diagram Figure 1 illustrates a simplified relation of
Identity , Identifier and Locators [IDy, IDf, LOC].
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| Identity (IDy) | Policy | Metadata | MI |
| |(private/public) | |(private) |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|
+---------------------+--------------------+
| | |
V V V
+------------------------+ +--------------+ +-------------------+
|Identifier(IDf)-1 | LOC1| | IDf-2 | LOC2 |...| IDf-n| LOC1..LOCm |
|(long-lived) | | (ephemeral) | | |
+------------------------+ +--------------+ +-------------------+
MI - Management and Security Information
Figure 1: Identity and Identifier, Location Relationship
Only public part of the policy, metadata (see Section 7) SHOULD be
shared with other providers of GRIDS, for example, where the LOC
resolution request is originated.
4. Identity Use Cases
Identity potentially brings value to new breed of entities connecting
to the Internet. The need for an Identity can be described by a few
simple uses of the same as specified below.
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4.1. Privacy
To communicate with a device on a network, a LOC is needed. In
current [IDf, LOC] protocols, a Mapping Server (MS) stores the
[IDf,LOC] mapping. The resolution request or lookup of an IDf to the
MS will return the LOC.
Generally, an entity with a certain Identity may use various
Identifiers for communication. Only the Identifier is visible on the
wire. Changing the IDf frequently makes it hard to track the entity
by outside observers on the Internet and thus improves privacy of the
communication entities.
While it may be desirable to change the IDf every now and then for
privacy purposes, the notion of Identity in addition to IDf is
important a) to retain the ability to look up a communication entity
by a 'long-lived IDf' and b) to convey an authorized network entity
who is behind a given (ephemeral) IDf that is visible on the wire.
To put it simply, while the IDy of a communicating entity is
obfuscated to outside observers, it is revealed to communicating
parties with a legitimate need to know. Legitimate parties include
either end of entities itself or regulatory authorities or authorized
edge nodes (routers/IDf based firewalls) in the network.
4.2. Unified Policies
Networks may treat traffic differently depending on the IDy of source
or destination. E.g., certain traffic may access the network
directly, other traffic may need to pass a firewall, or other traffic
is entirely blocked. Based on IDy of communication peers involved,
and independent of the particular IDf used in a data packet (see
Section 4.1), traffic may be treated with different Quality of
Service (QoS).
Likewise, the use of alternative IDfs for the same system may allow
for different treatment of traffic for the same system depending on
how the system is referred to. This can be leveraged by combining
the enforcement of network policies with policies that guide
selective mapping responses. E.g., some requesting groups may
receive an empty response from GRIDS Infrastructure for IDfs
referring to a certain IDy, others receive an IDf resulting in strict
security treatment of future traffic, and trusted groups receive an
IDf resulting in rather loose security treatment.
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4.2.1. Access Restriction Policies
An entity may define that it wants to communicate only with certain
other entities. To achieve this, an entity MAY define a rule
regarding who can request and obtain its IDf. The GRIDS
Infrastructure will send a negative or empty response when it detects
that the combination of resolution query and its initiator does not
pass the rule validation test. One example of this policy is,
restriction of LOC resolution and hence allowing data traffic from
only from the dealer/manufacturer of a vehicular node.
Moreover, network-based access control may filter based on IDfs which
are visible in the traffic, but this can be done in an elegant way
through an association related to the IDy. IDy may be looked-up to
ensure if communication is still allowed after IDf change, for
example. By basing access control on the notion of Identity,
enforcement and maintainability of access control rules is greatly
simplified as it does not need to track IDf changes or the
introduction of new IDfs for the same IDy.
4.3. Uses of Metadata
The GRIDS Infrastructure is envisioned to store Metadata
(Section 1.1) and provide some search functionality. The GRIDS
Infrastructure with [IDy, IDf] may be a means to find a set of IDys
with certain metadata provided that they have agreed to be searchable
(allow discovery). Moreover, their IDfs can be looked up. E.g., it
may be possible to find out the current IDfs of a set of deployed
devices of particular type. This allows to locate them via [IDf,
LOC] mappings and possibly manage them.
Identity also allows to have metadata associated it to be applied,
regardless of which IDf is used to refer it. This association makes
the management of metadata easier, because it does not need to be
maintained separately and redundantly for every IDf.
4.4. Access Security and Manageability
Identity can be used for storing access security credentials to the
GRIDS and subscription information of the user entity securely as
opposed to various Identifiers representing the entity. As secure
registration to the GRIDS would be an expensive operation, this
SHOULD be restricted to IDy and (ephemeral) IDfs can be generated and
can be given rather securely using the same secure channel.
The IDy's lifecycle is inherently tied to the lifecycle of the entity
but not with multiple Identifiers which can be added or removed.
Hence, Identity allows separation of lifecycle of IDy to be different
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from Identifiers, which enables to extend the "right-to-be-forgotten"
concerning personal data to network identifier data, if required.
There are various possible scenarios on why a long-lived IDfs by a
communication entity has to be withdrawn. Common cases involved
lost/stolen device or misused Identifiers for example.
4.5. Delay-Tolerant Networking (DTN)
Entities may be only temporarily reachable on the Internet. When
they are not reachable, proxies may be used to receive their traffic.
To that end, a IDy MAY register one of the IDfs of its proxy with the
GRIDS Infrastructure that this node can, e.g., receive traffic for
that node and later forward to it when the node is again online. A
major application field may be in the IoT with mobile and
intermittently connected devices
5. Acknowledgements
Thanks to Padma Pillay-Esnault for so many conversations around
Identity and its potential uses in IDEAS. Authors would like to
thank detailed reviews and suggestions from Dino Farinacci, Joel
Halpern, Jeff Tantsura, Jim Guichard, Christian Huitema, Dave Meyers,
Liu Bingyang and Yangfei.
6. IANA Considerations
This document has no actions for IANA.
7. Security Considerations
This document further abstracts Identity from the Identifier in
current Identifier/Locator protocols. This abstraction gives
significant security benefits in Identity enables networks with
respect to anonymization of communications on the wire and access
controls at the GRIDS specified in
[I-D.padma-ideas-problem-statement]. The IDy policy SHOULD be
limited in scope and only public part of the policy SHOULD be
sharable to other GRIDS Providers. Storage and Security of the data
itself at the GRIDS-provider is critical. A separate threat analysis
for security aspects of private/public portions of the IDy data
SHOULD be done once the architecture is evolved.
8. References
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8.1. Normative References
[RFC0791] Postel, J., "Internet Protocol", STD 5, RFC 791,
DOI 10.17487/RFC0791, September 1981,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc791>.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
8.2. Informative References
[I-D.farinacci-lisp-eid-anonymity]
Farinacci, D., Pillay-Esnault, P., and W. Haddad, "LISP
EID Anonymity", draft-farinacci-lisp-eid-anonymity-02
(work in progress), April 2017.
[I-D.padma-ideas-problem-statement]
Pillay-Esnault, P., Boucadair, M., Jacquenet, C.,
Fioccola, G., and A. Nennker, "Problem Statement for
Identity Enabled Networks", draft-padma-ideas-problem-
statement-01 (work in progress), March 2017.
[RFC6830] Farinacci, D., Fuller, V., Meyer, D., and D. Lewis, "The
Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP)", RFC 6830,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6830, January 2013,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6830>.
[RFC7401] Moskowitz, R., Ed., Heer, T., Jokela, P., and T.
Henderson, "Host Identity Protocol Version 2 (HIPv2)",
RFC 7401, DOI 10.17487/RFC7401, April 2015,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7401>.
Authors' Addresses
Uma Chunduri (editor)
Huawei Technologies
2330 Central Expressway
Santa Clara, CA 95050
USA
Email: uma.chunduri@huawei.com
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Alexander Clemm
Huawei Technologies
2330 Central Expressway
Santa Clara, CA 95050
USA
Email: ludwig@clemm.org
Michael Menth
University of Tuebingen
Germany
Email: menth@uni-tuebingen.de
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