Network Working Group C. Huitema
Internet-Draft Private Octopus Inc.
Intended status: Standards Track D. Kaiser
Expires: January 4, 2018 University of Konstanz
July 3, 2017
Device Pairing Using Short Authentication Strings
draft-ietf-dnssd-pairing-02.txt
Abstract
This document proposes a device pairing mechanism that establishes a
relationship between two devices by agreeing on a secret and manually
verifying the secret's authenticity using an SAS (short
authentication string). Pairing has to be performed only once per
pair of devices, as for a re-discovery at any later point in time,
the exchanged secret can be used for mutual authentication.
The proposed pairing method is suited for each application area where
human operated devices need to establish a relation that allows
configurationless and privacy preserving re-discovery at any later
point in time. Since privacy preserving applications are the main
suitors, we especially care about privacy.
Status of This Memo
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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 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2. Document Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Problem Statement and Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1. Secure Pairing Over Internet Connections . . . . . . . . 4
2.2. Identity Assurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3. Manual Authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3.1. Short PIN Proved Inadequate . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3.2. Push Buttons Just Work, But Are Insecure . . . . . . 6
2.3.3. Short Range Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.3.4. Short Authentication Strings . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.4. Resist Cryptographic Attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.5. Privacy Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.6. Using TLS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.7. QR codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.8. Intra User Pairing and Transitive Pairing . . . . . . . . 14
3. Design of the Pairing Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.1. Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.2. Agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.3. Authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.4. Authenticating Public Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4. Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.1. Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.2. Agreement and Authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
7. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
8.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
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1. Introduction
To engage in secure and privacy preserving communication, hosts need
to differentiate between authorized peers, which must both know about
the host's presence and be able to decrypt messages sent by the host,
and other peers, which must not be able to decrypt the host's
messages and ideally should not be aware of the host's presence. The
necessary relationship between host and peer can be established by a
centralized service, e.g. a certificate authority, by a web of trust,
e.g. PGP, or -- without using global identities -- by device
pairing.
This document proposes a device pairing mechanism that provides human
operated devices with pairwise authenticated secrets, allowing mutual
automatic re-discovery at any later point in time along with mutual
private authentication. We especially care about privacy and user-
friendliness.
The proposed pairing mechanism consists of three steps needed to
establish a relationship between a host and a peer:
1. Discovering the peer device. The host needs a means to discover
network parameters necessary to establish a connection to the
peer. During this discovery process, neither the host nor the
peer must disclose its presence.
2. Agreeing on pairing data. The devices have to agree on pairing
data, which can be used by both parties at any later point in
time to generate identifiers for re-discovery and to prove the
authenticity of the pairing. The pairing data can e.g. be a
shared secret agreed upon via a Diffie-Hellman key exchange.
3. Authenticating pairing data. Since in most cases the messages
necessary to agree upon pairing data are send over an insecure
channel, means that guarantee the authenticity of these messages
are necessary; otherwise the pairing data is in turn not suited
as a means for a later proof of authenticity. For the proposed
pairing mechanism we use manual authentication involving an SAS
(short authentication string) to proof the authenticity of the
pairing data.
1.1. Requirements
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].
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1.2. Document Organization
NOTE TO RFC EDITOR: remove or rewrite this section before
publication.
This document is organized in two parts. The first part, composed of
Section 1, Section 2, and Section 3 presents the pairing need, the
list of requirements that shall be met, and the general design of the
solution. This first part is informational in nature. The second
part, composed of Section 4 and Section 5, is the actual
specification of the protocol.
In his early review, Steve Kent observed that the style of the first
part seems inappropriate for a standards track document, and
suggested that the two parts should be split into two documents, the
first part becoming an informational document, and the second
focusing on standard track specification of the protocol, making
reference to the informational document as appropriate. We, the
authors, will seek working group approval before performing this
split.
2. Problem Statement and Requirements
The general pairing requirement is easy to state: establish a trust
relation between two entities in a secure manner. But details
matter, and in this section we explore the detailed requirements that
guide our design.
2.1. Secure Pairing Over Internet Connections
Many pairing protocols have already been developed, in particular for
the pairing of devices over specific wireless networks. For example,
the current Bluetooth specifications include a pairing protocol that
has evolved over several revisions towards better security and
usability [BTLEPairing]. The Wi-Fi Alliance defined the Wi-Fi
Protected Setup process to ease the setup of security-enabled Wi-Fi
networks in home and small office environments [WPS]. Other wireless
standards have defined or are defining similar protocols, tailored to
specific technologies.
This specification defines a pairing protocol that is independent of
the underlying technology. We simply make the hypothesis that the
two parties engaged in the pairing can discover each other and then
establish connections over IP in order to agree on a shared secret.
[[TODO: Should we support certificates besides a shared secret?]]
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2.2. Identity Assurance
The parties in the pairing must be able to identify each other. To
put it simply, if Alice believes that she is establishing a pairing
with Bob, she must somehow ensure that the pairing is actually
established with Bob, and not with some interloper like Eve or
Nessie. Providing this assurance requires designing both the
protocol and the user interface (UI) with care.
Consider for example an attack in which Eve tricks Alice into
engaging in a pairing process while pretending to be Bob. Alice must
be able to discover that something is wrong, and refuse to establish
the pairing. The parties engaged in the pairing must at least be
able to verify their identities, respectively.
2.3. Manual Authentication
Because the pairing protocol is executed without prior knowledge, it
is typically vulnerable to "Man-in-the-Middle" attacks. While Alice
is trying to establish a pairing with Bob, Eve positions herself in
the middle. Instead of getting a pairing between Alice and Bob, both
Alice and Bob get paired with Eve. This requires specific features in
the protocol to detect Man-in-the-Middle attacks, and if possible
resist them.
This section discusses existing techniques that are used in practice,
and Section 2.4 provides a layman description of the MiTM problem and
countermeasures. A more in depth exploration of manually
authenticated pairing protocols may be found in [NR11] and [thesis
kaiserd].
2.3.1. Short PIN Proved Inadequate
The initial Bluetooth pairing protocol relied on a four digit PIN,
displayed by one of the devices to be paired. The user would read
that PIN and provide it to the other device. The PIN would then be
used in a Password Authenticated Key Exchange. Wi-Fi Protected Setup
[WPS] offered a similar option. There were various attacks against
the actual protocol; some of the problems were caused by issues in
the protocol, but most were tied to the usage of short PINs.
In the reference implementation, the PIN is picked at random by the
paired device before the beginning of the exchange. But this
requires that the paired device is capable of generating and
displaying a four digit number. It turns out that many devices
cannot do that. For example, an audio headset does not have any
display capability. These limited devices ended up using static
PINs, with fixed values like "0000" or "0001".
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Even when the paired device could display a random PIN, that PIN will
have to be copied by the user on the pairing device. It turns out
that users do not like copying long series of numbers, and the
usability thus dictated that the PINs be short -- four digits in
practice. But there is only so much assurance as can be derived from
a four digit key.
It is interesting to note that the latest revisions of the Bluetooth
Pairing protocol [BTLEPairing] do not include the short PIN option
anymore. The PIN entry methods have been superseded by the simple
"just works" method for devices without displays, and by a procedure
based on an SAS (short authentication string) when displays are
available.
A further problem with these PIN based approaches is that -- in
contrast to SASes -- the PIN is a secret instrumental in the security
algorithm. To guarantee security, this PIN would have to be
transmitted via a secure out-of-band channel.
2.3.2. Push Buttons Just Work, But Are Insecure
Some devices are unable to input or display any code. The industry
more or less converged on a "push button" solution. When the button
is pushed, devices enter a "pairing" mode, during which they will
accept a pairing request from whatever other device connects to them.
The Bluetooth Pairing protocol [BTLEPairing] denotes that as the
"just works" method. It does indeed work, and if the pairing
succeeds the devices will later be able to use the pairing keys to
authenticate connections. However, the procedure does not provide
any protection against MitM attacks during the pairing process. The
only protection is that pushing the button will only allow pairing
for a limited time, thus limiting the opportunities of attacks.
As we set up to define a pairing protocol with a broad set of
applications, we cannot limit ourselves to an insecure "push button"
method. But we probably need to allow for a mode of operation that
works for input-limited and display limited devices.
2.3.3. Short Range Communication
Many pairing protocols that use out-of-band channels have been
defined. Most of them are based on short range communication
systems, where the short range limits the feasibility for attackers
to access the channels. Example of such limited systems include for
example:
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o QR codes, displayed on the screen of one device, and read by the
camera of the other device.
o Near Field Communication (NFC) systems, which provides wireless
communication with a very short range.
o Sound systems, in which one systems emits a sequence of sounds or
ultrasounds that is picked by the microphone of the other system.
A common problem with these solutions is that they require special
capabilities that may not be present in every device. Another
problem is that they are often one-way channels.
The pairing protocols should not rely on the secrecy of the out-of-
band channels; most of these out-of-band channels do not provide
confidentiality. QR codes could be read by third parties. Powerful
radio antennas might be able to interfere with NFC. Sensitive
microphones might pick the sounds. However, a property that all of
these channels share is authenticity, i.e. an assurance that the data
obtained over the out-of-band channel actually comes from the other
party. This is because these out-of-band channels involve the user
transmitting information from one device to the other. We will
discuss the specific case of QR codes in Section 2.7.
2.3.4. Short Authentication Strings
The evolving pairing protocols seem to converge towards using Short
Authentication Strins and verifying them via the "compare and
confirm" method. This is in line with academic studies, such as
[KFR09] or [USK11], and, from the users' perspective, results in a
very simple interaction:
1. Alice and Bob compare displayed strings that represent a
fingerprint of the afore exchanged pairing key.
2. If the strings match, Alice and Bob accept the pairing.
Most existing pairing protocols display the fingerprint of the key as
a 6 or 7 digit numbers. Usability studies show that this method
gives good results, with little risk that users mistakenly accept two
different numbers as matching. However, the authors of [USK11] found
that people had more success comparing computer generated sentences
than comparing numbers. This is in line with the argument in
[XKCD936] to use sequences of randomly chosen common words as
passwords. On the other hand, standardizing strings is more
complicated than standardizing numbers. We would need to specify a
list of common words, and the process to go from a binary fingerprint
to a set of words. We would need to be concerned with
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internationalization issues, such as using different lists of words
in German and in English. This could require the negotiation of word
lists or languages inside the pairing protocols.
In contrast, numbers are easy to specify, as in "take a 20 bit number
and display it as an integer using decimal notation".
2.4. Resist Cryptographic Attacks
It is tempting to believe that once two peers are connected, they
could create a secret with a few simple steps, such as for example
(1) exchange two nonces, (2) hash the concatenation of these nonces
with the shared secret that is about to be established, (3) display a
short authentication string composed of a short version of that hash
on each device, and (4) verify that the two values match. This naive
approach might yield the following sequence of messages:
Alice Bob
g^xA -->
<-- g^xB
nA -->
<-- nB
Computes Computes
s = g^xAxB s = g^xAxB
h = hash(s|nA|nB) h = hash(s|nA|nB)
Displays short Displays short
version of h version of h
If the two short hashes match, Alice and Bob are supposedly assured
that they have computed the same secret, but there is a problem.
Let's redraw the same message flow, this time involving the attacker
Eve:
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Alice Eve Bob
g^xA -->
g^xA'-->
<-- g^xB
<--g^xB'
nA -->
nA -->
<-- nB
Picks nB'
smartly
<--nB'
Computes Computes
s' = g^xAxB' s" = g^xA'xB
h' = hash(s'|nA|nB') h" = hash(s"|nA|nB)
Displays short Displays short
version of h' version of h"
In order to pick a nonce nB' that circumvents this naive security
measure, Eve runs the following algorithm:
s' = g^xAxB'
s" = g^xA'xB
repeat
pick a new version of nB'
h' = hash(s'|nA|nB')
h" = hash(s"|nA|nB)
until the short version of h'
matches the short version of h"
Running this algorithm will take O(2^b) iterations on average
(assuming a uniform distribution), where b is the bit length of the
SAS. Since hash algorithms are fast, it is possible to try millions
of values in less than a second. If the short string is made up of
fewer than 6 digits, Eve will find a matching nonce quickly, and
Alice and Bob will hardly notice the delay. Even if the matching
string is as long as 8 letters, Eve will probably find a value where
the short versions of h' and h" are close enough, e.g. start and end
with the same two or three letters. Alice and Bob may well be
fooled.
Eve could also utilize the fact that she may freely choose the whole
input for the hash function and thus choose g^xA' and g^xB' so that
an arbitrary collision (birthday attack) instead of a second preimage
is sufficient for fooling Alice and Bob.
The classic solution to such problems is to "commit" a possible
attacker to a nonce before sending it. This commitment can be
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realized by a hash. In the modified exchange, Alice sends a secure
hash of her nonce before sending the actual value:
Alice Bob
g^xA -->
<-- g^xB
Computes Computes
s = g^xAxB s = g^xAxB
h_a = hash(s|nA) -->
<-- nB
nA -->
verifies h_a == hash(s|nA)
Computes Computes
h = hash(s|nA|nB) h = hash(s|nA|nB)
Displays short Displays short
version of h version of h
Alice will only disclose nA after having confirmation from Bob that
hash(nA) has been received. At that point, Eve has a problem. She
can still forge the values of the nonces but she needs to pick the
nonce nA' before the actual value of nA has been disclosed. Eve
would still have a random chance of fooling Alice and Bob, but it
will be a very small chance: one in a million if the short
authentication string is made of 6 digits, even fewer if that string
is longer.
Nguyen et al. [NR11] survey these protocols and compare them with
respect to the amount of necessary user interaction and the
computation time needed on the devices. The authors state that such
a protocol is optimal with respect to user interaction if it suffices
for users to verify a single b-bit SAS while having a one-shot attack
success probability of 2^-b. Further, n consecutive attacks on the
protocol must not have a better success probability then n one-shot
attacks.
There is still a theoretical problem, if Eve has somehow managed to
"crack" the hash function. We build some "defense in depth" by some
simple measures. In the design presented above, the hash "h_a"
depends on the shared secret "s", which acts as a "salt" and reduces
the effectiveness of potential attacks based on pre-computed
catalogs. For simplicity, the design used a simple concatenation
mechanism, but we could instead use a keyed-hash message
authentication code (HMAC [RFC2104], [RFC6151]), using the shared
secret as a key, since the HMAC construct has proven very robust over
time. Then, we can constrain the size of the random numbers to be
exactly the same as the output of the hash function. Hash attacks
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often require padding the input string with arbitrary data;
restraining the size limits the likelyhood of such padding.
2.5. Privacy Requirements
Pairing exposes a relation between several devices and their owners.
Adversaries may attempt to collect this information, for example in
an attempt to track devices, their owners, or their social graph. It
is often argued that pairing could be performed in a safe place, from
which adversaries are assumed absent, but experience shows that such
assumptions are often misguided. It is much safer to acknowledge the
privacy issues and design the pairing process accordingly.
In order to start the pairing process, devices must first discover
each other. We do not have the option of using the private discovery
protocol [I-D.ietf-dnssd-privacy] since the privacy of that protocol
depends on a pre-existing pairing. In the simplest design, one of
the devices will announce a user-friendly name using DNS-SD.
Adversaries could monitor the discovery protocol, and record that
name. An alternative would be for one device to announce a random
name, and communicate it to the other device via some private
channel. There is an obvious tradeoff here: friendly names are
easier to use but less private than random names. We anticipate that
different users will choose different tradeoffs, for example using
friendly names if they assume that the environment is safe, and using
random names in public places.
During the pairing process, the two devices establish a connection
and validate a pairing secret. As discussed in Section 2.3, we have
to assume that adversaries can mount MitM attacks. The pairing
protocol can detect such attacks and resist them, but the attackers
will have access to all messages exchanged before the validation is
performed. It is important to not exchange any privacy sensitive
information before that validation. This includes, for example, the
identities of the parties or their public keys.
2.6. Using TLS
The pairing algorithms typically combine the establishment of a
shared secret through an [EC]DH exchange with the verification of
that secret through displaying and comparing a "short authentication
string" (SAS). As explained in Section 2.4, the secure comparison
requires a "commit before disclose" mechanism.
We have three possible designs: (1) create a pairing algorithm from
scratch, specifying our own cryptographic protocol; (2) use an [EC]DH
version of TLS to negotiate a shared secret, export the key to the
application as specified in [RFC5705], and implement the "commit
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before disclose" and SAS verification as part of the pairing
application; or, (3) use TLS, integrate the "commit before disclose"
and SAS verification as TLS extensions, and export the verified key
to the application as specified in [RFC5705].
When faced with the same choice, the designers of ZRTP [RFC6189]
chose to design a new protocol integrated in the general framework of
real time communications. We don't want to follow that path, and
would rather not create yet another protocol. We would need to
reinvent a lot of the negotiation capabilities that are part of TLS,
not to mention algorithm agility, post quantum, and all that sort of
things. It is thus pretty clear that we should use TLS.
It turns out that there was already an attempt to define SAS
extensions for TLS ([I-D.miers-tls-sas]). It is a very close match
to our third design option, full integration of SAS in TLS, but the
draft has expired, and there does not seem to be any support for the
SAS options in the common TLS packages.
In our design, we will choose the middle ground option -- use TLS for
[EC]DH, and implement the SAS verification as part of the pairing
application. This minimizes dependencies on TLS packages to the
availability of a key export API following [RFC5705]. We will need
to specify the hash algorithm used for the SAS computation and
validation, which carries some of the issues associated with
"designing our own crypto". One solution would be to use the same
hash algorithm negotiated by the TLS connection, but common TLS
packages do not always make this algorithm identifier available
through standard APIs. A fallback solution is to specify a state of
the art keyed MAC algorithm.
2.7. QR codes
In Section 2.3.3, we reviewed a number of short range communication
systems that can be used to facilitate pairing. Out of these, QR
codes stand aside because most devices that can display a short
string can also display the image of a QR code, and because many
pairing scenarios involve cell phones equipped with cameras capable
of reading a QR code.
QR codes are displayed as images. An adversary equipped with
powerful cameras could read the QR code just as well as the pairing
parties. If the pairing protocol design embedded passwords or pins
in the QR code, adversaries could access these data and compromise
the protocol. On the other hand, there are ways to use QR codes even
without assuming secrecy.
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QR codes could be used at two of the three stages of pairing:
Discovering the peer device, and authenticating the shared secret.
Using QR codes provides advantages in both phases:
o Typical network based discovery involves interaction with two
devices. The device to be discovered is placed in "server" mode,
and waits for requests from the network. The device performing
the discovery retrieves a list of candidates from the network.
When there is more than one such candidate, the device user is
expected to select the desired target from a list. In QR code
mode, the discovered device will display a QR code, which the user
will scan using the second device. The QR code will embed the
device's name, its IP address, and the port number of the pairing
service. The connection will be automatic, without relying on the
network discovery. This is arguably less error-prone and safer
than selecting from a network provided list.
o SAS based agreement involves displaying a short string on each
device's display, and asking the user to verify that both devices
display the same string. In QR code mode, one device could
display a QR code containing this short string. The other device
could scan it and compare it to the locally computed version.
Because the procedure is automated, there is no dependency on the
user diligence at comparing the short strings.
Offering QR codes as an alternative to discovery and agreement is
straightforward. If QR codes are used, the pairing program on the
server side might display something like:
Please connect to "Bob's phone 359"
or scan the following QR code:
mmmmmmm m m mmmmmmm
# mmm # ## "m # mmm #
# ### # m" #" # ### #
#mmmmm# # m m #mmmmm#
mm m mm"## m mmm mm
" ##"mm m"# ####"m""#
#"mmm mm# m"# ""m" "m
mmmmmmm #mmm###mm# m
# mmm # m "mm " " "
# ### # " m # "## "#
#mmmmm# ### m"m m m
If Alice's device is capable of reading the QR code, it will just
scan it, establishes a connection, and run the pairing protocol.
After the protocol messages have been exchanged, Bob's device will
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display a new QR code, encoding the hash code that should be matched.
The UI might look like this:
Please scan the following QR code,
or verify that your device displays
the number: 388125
mmmmmmm mmm mmmmmmm
# mmm # ""#m# # mmm #
# ### # "# # # ### #
#mmmmm# # m"m #mmmmm#
mmmmm mmm" m m m m m
#"m mmm#"#"#"#m m#m
""mmmmm"m#""#""m # m
mmmmmmm # "m"m "m"#"m
# mmm # mmmm m "# #"
# ### # #mm"#"#m "
#mmmmm# #mm"#""m "m"
Did the number match (Yes/No)?
With the use of QR code, the pairing is established with little
reliance on user judgment, which is arguably safer.
2.8. Intra User Pairing and Transitive Pairing
There are two usage modes for pairing: inter-user, and intra-user.
Users have multiple devices. The simplest design is to not
distinguish between pairing devices belonging to two users, e.g.,
Alice's phone and Bob's phone, and devices belonging to the same
user, e.g., Alice's phone and her laptop. This will most certainly
work, but it raises the problem of transitivity. If Bob needs to
interact with Alice, should he install just one pairing for "Alice
and Bob", or should he install four pairings between Alice phone and
laptop and Bob phone and laptop? Also, what happens if Alice gets a
new phone?
One tempting response is to devise a synchronization mechanism that
will let devices belonging to the same user share their pairings with
other users. But it is fairly obvious that such service will have to
be designed cautiously. The pairing system relies on shared secrets.
It is much easier to understand how to manage secrets shared between
exactly two parties than secrets shared with an unspecified set of
devices.
Transitive pairing raises similar issues. Suppose that a group of
users wants to collaborate. Will they need to set up a fully
connected graph of pairings using the simple peer-to-peer mechanism,
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or could they use some transitive set, so that if Alice is connected
with Bob and Bob with Carol, Alice automatically gets connected with
Carol? Such transitive mechanisms could be designed, e.g. using a
variation of Needham-Scroeder symmetric key protocol [NS1978], but it
will require some extensive work. Groups can of course use simpler
solution, e.g., build some star topology.
Given the time required, intra-user pairing synchronization
mechanisms and transitive pairing mechanisms are left for further
study.
3. Design of the Pairing Mechanism
In this section we discuss the design of pairing protocols that use
manually verified short authentication strings (SAS), considering
both security and user experience.
We divide pairing in three parts: discovery, agreement, and
authentication, detailed in the following subsections.
3.1. Discovery
The goal of the discovery phase is establishing a connection, which
is later used to exchange the pairing data, between the two devices
that are about to be paired in an IP network without any prior
knowledge and without publishing any private information. In
accordance with TLS, we refer to the device initiating the
cryptographic protocol as client, and to the other device as server;
the server has to be discoverable by the client.
Granting privacy during the discovery phase without relying on prior
knowledge demands another user interaction (besides the SAS
verification during the authentication phase). There are two
possible ways of realizing this user interaction depending on whether
QR codes are supported or not. If QR codes are supported, the
discovery process can be independent of DNS-SD, because QR codes
allow the transmission of a sufficient amount of data. Leveraging QR
codes, the discovery proceeds as follows.
1. The server displays a QR code containing the instance name, the
IPv4 or IPv6 address, and the port number of the service/
2. The client scans the QR code retrieving the necessary information
for establishing a connection to the server.
If QR codes are not supported, the discovery proceeds as follows.
1. The server displays its chosen instance name on its screen.
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2. The client performs a discovery of all the "pairing" servers
available on the local network. This may result in the discovery
of several servers.
3. Among these available "pairing servers" the client's user selects
the name that matches the name displayed by the server.
4. Per DNS-SD, the client then retrieves the SRV records of the
selected instance, selects one of the discovered servers,
retrieves its A or AAAA records, and establishes the connection.
3.2. Agreement
Once the server has been selected, the client connects to it without
further user intervention. Client and server use this connection for
exchanging data that allows them to agree on a shared secret by using
a cryptographic protocol that yields an SAS. We discussed design
aspects of such protocols in Section 2.4.
3.3. Authentication
In the authentication phase, the users are asked to validate the
pairing by comparing the SASes -- typically represented by a number
encoded over up to 7 decimal digits. If the SASes match, each user
enters an agreement, for example by pressing a button labeled "OK",
which results in the pairing being remembered. If they do not match,
each user should cancel the pairing, for example by pressing a button
labeled "CANCEL".
Depending on whether QR codes are supported, the SAS may also be
represented as QR code. Despite the fact that using QR codes to
represent the authentication string renders using longer
authentication strings feasible, we suggest to always generate an SAS
during the agreement phase, because this makes realizations of the
agreement phase and the authentication phase independent. Devices
may display the "real" name of the other device alongside the SAS.
3.4. Authenticating Public Keys
[[TODO: Should we discuss verifying public keys using our pairing
mechanism?]]
4. Solution
In the proposed pairing protocol, one of the devices acts as a
"server", and the other acts as a "client". The server will publish
a "pairing service". The client will discover the service instance
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during the discovery phase, as explained in Section 4.1. The pairing
service itself is specified in Section 4.2.
4.1. Discovery
The discovery uses DNS-SD [RFC6763] over mDNS [RFC6762]. The pairing
service is identified in DNS SD as "_pairing._tcp". When the pairing
service starts, the server starts publishing the chosen instance
name. The client will discover that name and the corresponding
connection parameters.
If QR code scanning is available as out-of-band channel, the
discovery data is directly transmitted via QR codes instead of DNS-SD
over mDNS. The QR code data contains connection data otherwise found
in the SRV and A or AAAA records: IPv4 or IPv6 address, port number,
and optionally host name.
[[TODO: We should precisely specify the data layout of this QR code.
It could either be the wire format of the corresponding resource
records (which would be easier for us), or a more efficient
representation. If we chose the wire format, we could use a fix name
as instance name.]]
4.2. Agreement and Authentication
The pairing protocol is built using TLS. The following description
uses the presentation language defined in section 4 of [RFC5246].
The protocol uses five message types, defined in the following enum:
enum {
ClientHash(1),
ServerRandom(2),
ClientRandom(3),
ServerSuccess(4),
ClientSuccess(5)
} PairingMessageType;
Devices implementing the service MUST support TLS 1.2 [RFC5246], and
MAY negotiate TLS 1.3 when it becomes available. When using TLS, the
client and server MUST negotiate a ciphersuite providing forward
secrecy (PFS), and strong encryption (256 bits symmetric key). All
implementations using TLS 1.2 MUST be able to negotiate the cipher
suite TLS_DH_anon_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256.
Once the TLS connection has been established, each party extracts the
pairing secret S_p from the connection context per [RFC5705], using
the following parameters:
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Disambiguating label string: "PAIRING SECRET"
Context value: empty.
Length value: 32 bytes (256 bits).
Once S_p has been obtained, the client picks a random number R_c,
exactly 32 bytes long. The client then selects a hash algorithm,
which SHOULD be the same algorithm as negotiated for building the PRF
in the TLS connection. If there is no suitable API to retrieve that
algorithm, the client MAY use SHA256 instead. The client then
computes the hash value H_c as:
H_c = HMAC_hash(S_p, R_c)
Where "HMAC_hash" is the HMAC function constructed with the
selected algorithm.
The client transmits the selected hash function and the computed
value of H_c in the Client Hash message, over the TLS connection:
struct {
PairingMessageType messageType;
hashAlgorithm hash;
uint8 hashLength;
opaque H_c[hashLength];
} ClientHashMessage;
messageType Set to "ClientHash".
hash The code of the selected hash algorithm, per definition of
HashAlgorithm in section 7.4.1.1.1 of [RFC5246].
hashLength The length of the hash H_c, which MUST be consistent with
the selected algorithm "hash".
H_c The value of the client hash.
Upon reception of this message, the server stores its value. The
server picks a random number R_s, exactly 32 bytes long, and
transmits it to the client in the server random message, over the TLS
connection:
struct {
PairingMessageType messageType;
opaque R_s[32];
} ServerRandomMessage;
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messageType Set to "ServerRandom".
R_s The value of the random number chosen by the server.
Upon reception of this message, the client discloses its own random
number by transmitting the client random message:
struct {
PairingMessageType messageType;
opaque R_c[32];
} ClientRandomMessage;
messageType Set to "ClientRandom".
R_c The value of the random number chosen by the client.
Upon reception of this message, the server verifies that the number
R_c hashes to the previously received value H_c. If the number does
not match, the server MUST abandon the pairing attempt and abort the
TLS connection.
At this stage, both client and server can compute the short hash SAS
as:
SAS = first 20 bits of HMAC_hash(S_p, R_c + R_s)
Where "HMAC_hash" is the HMAC function constructed with the hash
algorithm selected by the client in the ClientHashMessage.
Both client and server display the SAS as a decimal integer, and ask
the user to compare the values. If the server supports QR codes, the
server displays a QR code encoding the decimal string representation
of the SAS. If the client is capable of scanning QR codes, it may
scan the value and compare it to the locally computed value.
If the values do not match, the user cancels the pairing. Otherwise,
the protocol continues with the exchange of names, both server and
client announcing their own preferred name in a Success message
struct {
PairingMessageType messageType;
uint8 nameLength;
opaque name[nameLength];
} ClientSuccessMessage;
messageType Set to "ClientSuccess" if transmitted by the client,
"ServerSuccess" if by the server.
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nameLength The length of the string encoding the selected name.
name The selected name of the client or the server, encoded as a
string of UTF8 characters.
After receiving these messages, client and servers can orderly close
the TLS connection, terminating the pairing exchange.
5. Security Considerations
We need to consider two types of attacks against a pairing system:
attacks that occur during the establishment of the pairing relation,
and attacks that occur after that establishment.
During the establishment of the pairing system, we are concerned with
privacy attacks and with MitM attacks. Privacy attacks reveal the
existence of a pairing between two devices, which can be used to
track graphs of relations. MitM attacks result in compromised
pairing keys. The discovery procedures specified in Section 4.1 and
the authentication procedures specified in Section 4.2 are
specifically designed to mitigate such attacks, assuming that the
client and user are in close, physical proximity and thus a human
user can visually acquire and verify the pairing information.
The establishment of the pairing results in the creation of a shared
secret. After the establishment of the pairing relation, attackers
who compromise one of the devices could access the shared secret.
This will enable them to either track or spoof the devices. To
mitigate such attacks, nodes MUST store the secret safely, and MUST
be able to quickly revoke a compromised pairing. This is however not
sufficient, as the compromise of the pairing key could remain
undetected for a long time. For further safety, nodes SHOULD assign
a time limit to the validity of pairings, discard the corresponding
keys when the time has passed, and establish new pairings.
6. IANA Considerations
This draft does not require any IANA action.
7. Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Steve Kent for a detailed early review of this
document.
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8. References
8.1. Normative References
[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>.
[RFC5246] Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
(TLS) Protocol Version 1.2", RFC 5246,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5246, August 2008,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5246>.
[RFC5705] Rescorla, E., "Keying Material Exporters for Transport
Layer Security (TLS)", RFC 5705, DOI 10.17487/RFC5705,
March 2010, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5705>.
[RFC6762] Cheshire, S. and M. Krochmal, "Multicast DNS", RFC 6762,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6762, February 2013,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6762>.
[RFC6763] Cheshire, S. and M. Krochmal, "DNS-Based Service
Discovery", RFC 6763, DOI 10.17487/RFC6763, February 2013,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6763>.
8.2. Informative References
[BTLEPairing]
Bluetooth SIG, "Bluetooth Low Energy Security Overview",
2016,
<https://developer.bluetooth.org/TechnologyOverview/Pages/
LE-Security.aspx>.
[I-D.ietf-dnssd-privacy]
Huitema, C. and D. Kaiser, "Privacy Extensions for DNS-
SD", draft-ietf-dnssd-privacy-01 (work in progress), March
2017.
[I-D.miers-tls-sas]
Miers, I., Green, M., and E. Rescorla, "Short
Authentication Strings for TLS", draft-miers-tls-sas-00
(work in progress), February 2014.
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[KFR09] Kainda, R., Flechais, I., and A. Roscoe, "Usability and
Security of Out-Of-Band Channels in Secure Device Pairing
Protocols", DOI: 10.1145/1572532.1572547, SOUPS
09, Proceedings of the 5th Symposium on Usable Privacy and
Security, Mountain View, CA, January 2009.
[NR11] Nguyen, L. and A. Roscoe, "Authentication protocols based
on low-bandwidth unspoofable channels: a comparative
survey", DOI: 10.3233/JCS-2010-0403, Journal of Computer
Security, Volume 19 Issue 1, Pages 139-201, January 2011.
[NS1978] Needham, R. and M. Schroeder, ". Using encryption for
authentication in large networks of computers",
Communications of the ACM 21 (12): 993-999,
DOI: 10.1145/359657.359659, December 1978.
[RFC2104] Krawczyk, H., Bellare, M., and R. Canetti, "HMAC: Keyed-
Hashing for Message Authentication", RFC 2104,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2104, February 1997,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2104>.
[RFC6151] Turner, S. and L. Chen, "Updated Security Considerations
for the MD5 Message-Digest and the HMAC-MD5 Algorithms",
RFC 6151, DOI 10.17487/RFC6151, March 2011,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6151>.
[RFC6189] Zimmermann, P., Johnston, A., Ed., and J. Callas, "ZRTP:
Media Path Key Agreement for Unicast Secure RTP",
RFC 6189, DOI 10.17487/RFC6189, April 2011,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6189>.
[USK11] Uzun, E., Saxena, N., and A. Kumar, "Pairing devices for
social interactions: a comparative usability evaluation",
DOI: 10.1145/1978942.1979282, Proceedings of the
International Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems, CHI 2011, Vancouver, BC, Canada, May 2011.
[WPS] Wi-Fi Alliance, "Wi-Fi Protected Setup", 2016,
<http://www.wi-fi.org/discover-wi-fi/
wi-fi-protected-setup>.
[XKCD936] Munroe, R., "XKCD: Password Strength", 2011,
<https://www.xkcd.com/936/>.
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Authors' Addresses
Christian Huitema
Private Octopus Inc.
Friday Harbor, WA 98250
U.S.A.
Email: huitema@huitema.net
Daniel Kaiser
University of Konstanz
Konstanz 78457
Germany
Email: daniel.kaiser@uni-konstanz.de
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