Network Working Group                                        E. Rescorla
Internet-Draft                                                RTFM, Inc.
Updates:  6222 (if approved)                               July 09, 2012
Intended status:  Standards Track
Expires:  January 10, 2013


               Random algorithm for RTP CNAME generation
                 draft-rescorla-avtcore-random-cname-00

Abstract

   RFC 6222 describes a number of mechanisms for generating a unique
   CNAME Unfortunately, these algorithms are rather complicated and also
   produce CNAMEs which in some cases are potentially linkable over
   multiple RTCP sessions even if a new CNAME is generated for each
   session.  This document specifies a replacement algorithm for the
   algorithm in Section 5 which does not have this limitation and is
   also simpler to implement.

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on January 10, 2013.




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Copyright Notice

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Table of Contents

   1.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
   2.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
     2.1.  Linkability of the RFC 6222 algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . 5
   3.  Alternative Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
     3.1.  Comparison to RFC 6222 Algorithm  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
       3.1.1.  Ease of implementation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
       3.1.2.  Format  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
       3.1.3.  Uniqueness  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
       3.1.4.  Linkability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
   4.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
   5.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
     5.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
     5.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8



































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1.  Terminology

   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 RFC 2119 [RFC2119].


2.  Introduction

   [RFC6222] defines a set of algorithms for generating unique RTP
   CNAMES [RFC3550].  Although these algorithms attempt to provide some
   privacy, the CNAMEs they generate are still potentially linkable, as
   acknowledged in the security considerations section of RFC 6222.
   This document describes a simpler algorithm which produces an
   identifier which is compatible with RFC 6222 identifiers and is in
   fact indistinguishable from them without significant computational
   effort,

   RFC 6222 Section 4.2 requires:

 " An RTP endpoint that wishes to generate a per-session RTCP CNAME MUST
  use the following method:

    o  For every new RTP session, a new CNAME is generated following the
    procedure described in Section 5.  After performing that
    procedure, the least significant 96 bits are used to generate an
    identifier (to compromise between packet size and security), which
    is converted to ASCII using Base64 encoding [RFC4648].  This
    results in a 16-octet string representation.  The RTCP CNAME
    cannot change over the life of an RTP session [RFC3550]; hence,
    only the initial SSRC value chosen by the endpoint is used.  The
    "user@" part of the RTCP CNAME is omitted when generating
    per-session RTCP CNAMEs."

   The algorithm in Section 5 of RFC 6222 is a cryptographic hash of the
   following input values:

   o  The current time in 64-bit NTP format
   o  An EUI-64 or 48-bit MAC address [RFC4291].
   o  The initial SSRC and source and destination address/port quartets

   The result of this process is a random-appearing binary value which
   can then be converted to a CNAME by the process described above.
   Unfortunately, in many settings the input values do not provide
   sufficient entropy, thus making it possible to determine if multiple
   CNAME values were generated on the same machine.





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2.1.  Linkability of the RFC 6222 algorithm

   While the output of the RFC6222 algorithm is with high probability
   unique, it is not clearly unlinkable.  Consider the case where we
   have two CNAMEs C1 and C2 and we wish to determine whether they were
   generated by the same endpoint.  This situation might occur if
   multiple calls were made from some anonymous location like a domestic
   violence shelter.  For instance, the attacker receives a call from an
   unknown location and then calls a number of candidate locations in an
   attempt to determine if they are the same.  Starting with C1, the
   attacker exhaustively searches all the potential input values to find
   a set which hashes to C1.  He then can simply search the nearby input
   space and if the result is C2, he knows that the calls involve the
   same endpoint.

   The complexity of this attack is directly related to the entropy of
   the input variables.  At minimum the attacker knows:

   o  The destination IP address and port exactly.
   o  The timestamp (from the RTP header) to within a few seconds.  With
      a typical 100 ticks/second clock, this represents about 10 bits of
      entropy at most (and potentially more like 2-3 bits)
   o  The SSRC (from the RTP header).

   This leaves the primary sources of entropy as the source IP address/
   port and the MAC/EUI-64 address.  RFC 6222 is unclear on which IP
   address/port is to be used, but there are three main possibilities:

   o  A relayed address/port (known to the attacker) by looking at the
      RTP.  [Note we are assuming that a media relay is used otherwise
      linkability is trivial.]
   o  The local IP address (most likely chosen from a very small number
      of local addresses in the the 10.0.x.x. or 192.168.x.x range.).
      As residential NATs generally assign addresses in sequence and
      phones are often the first item to reboot addresses 10.0.0.1,
      192.168.0.1, and 192.168.1.1 are very common with the first 5
      addresses in each range representing a large fraction of all
      devices.
   o  The public IP address of the peer--hard to guess but easy to
      determine with a scan and not really a natural choice.

   Similarly, the port in use is often not chosen randomly but often
   from a small set of initial ports chosen by the implementation (by
   default Cisco devices often use 16000-16004.  Thus, while in
   principle there are 48 bits of randomness in the IP and port, in
   practice they may offer no entropy (in the case where the relayed
   address is used as the RFC 6222 input) or only 7 bits (where the
   local address is used but the client is behind a residential NAT and



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   uses a limited port range.)

   Similarly, while in principle the MAC address has 48 bits of entropy,
   in practice devices are easily fingerprinted and once the
   manufacturer is known, the MAC address is restricted to the much
   narrower range assigned to the manufacturer, which are again often
   assigned in sequence (on the order of 20-32 bits).

   Thus, in order to mount the initial attack, the attacker need search
   somewhere between 20-30 bits (if the relayed address is known) and 70
   bits.  On the upper end, there is no real linkability problem, but on
   the lower end linkability is practical.  The lower-end case is
   relevant to many residential and small business settings (exactly the
   kind operated by DV shelters) with "natural" implementations of RFC
   6222.


3.  Alternative Algorithm

   In this document, we propose an alternative approach based on simply
   generating a cryptographically pseudorandom value.  Implementations
   conformant with this specification MAY replace the algorithm in
   Section 5 with a random value generated using a cryptographic random
   number generator [RFC4096].  This value MUST be at least 96 bits but
   MAY be longer (see Section 4 for analysis of the length).

3.1.  Comparison to RFC 6222 Algorithm

3.1.1.  Ease of implementation

   The biggest bottleneck to implementation of this algorithm is the
   availability of an appropriate cryptographically secure PRNG
   (CSPRNG).  In any setting whcih already has a secure PRNG, this
   algorithm described is far simpler, and many implementations already
   have this capability.  SIP stacks [RFC3261] are required to use
   cryptographically random numbers to generate To and From tags
   (Section 19.3).  RTCWEB implementations
   [I-D.ietf-rtcweb-security-arch] will need to have secure PRNGs to
   implement ICE [RFC5245] and DTLS-SRTP [RFC5764].  And of course
   essentially every Web browser already supports TLS, which requires a
   secure PRNG.

3.1.2.  Format

   The output produced by this algorithm is a string of random bits.  If
   it is of length 96 bits, it is indistinguishable from the output of
   the RFC6222 algorithm without significant computation (see
   Section 2.1).



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3.1.3.  Uniqueness

   One concern that is often raised whenever random numbers are proposed
   is that of uniqueness.  However, for the purposes of statistical
   uniqueness, the RFC6222 algorithm has equivalent properties to a
   PRNG, since the chance of the hashes of any two arbitrarily chosen
   strings colliding are the same as those of any two random strings
   colliding (or else this constitutes a weakness in the hash.)

3.1.4.  Linkability

   A basic design criterion of a good CSPRNG is that it not be possible
   to distinguish its output from random values.  Clearly, identifying
   two outputs as being from the same CSPRNG would violate this
   requirement In order to mount the attack described in Section 2.1
   would require exhaustively searching the seed space of the PRNG.  Any
   conditions under which this was practical would represent a severe
   threat to the security of the CSPRNG if used in any communications
   security setting.


4.  Security Considerations

   The privacy properties of the algorithm described here are as strong
   or stronger than those of the RFC6222 algorithm.  Because of the
   properties of the PRNG, there is no significant privacy/linkability
   difference between long and short CNAMEs.  However, the requirement
   to generate unique CNAMEs implies a certain minimum length.  A length
   of 96-bits allows on the order of 2^{40} CNAMEs globally before there
   is a large chance of collision (there is about a 50% chance of one
   collision after 2^{48} CNAMEs).


5.  References

5.1.  Normative References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC3550]  Schulzrinne, H., Casner, S., Frederick, R., and V.
              Jacobson, "RTP: A Transport Protocol for Real-Time
              Applications", STD 64, RFC 3550, July 2003.

   [RFC4096]  Malamud, C., "Policy-Mandated Labels Such as "Adv:" in
              Email Subject Headers Considered Ineffective At Best",
              RFC 4096, May 2005.




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   [RFC6222]  Begen, A., Perkins, C., and D. Wing, "Guidelines for
              Choosing RTP Control Protocol (RTCP) Canonical Names
              (CNAMEs)", RFC 6222, April 2011.

5.2.  Informative References

   [I-D.ietf-rtcweb-security-arch]
              Rescorla, E., "RTCWEB Security Architecture",
              draft-ietf-rtcweb-security-arch-02 (work in progress),
              June 2012.

   [RFC3261]  Rosenberg, J., Schulzrinne, H., Camarillo, G., Johnston,
              A., Peterson, J., Sparks, R., Handley, M., and E.
              Schooler, "SIP: Session Initiation Protocol", RFC 3261,
              June 2002.

   [RFC4291]  Hinden, R. and S. Deering, "IP Version 6 Addressing
              Architecture", RFC 4291, February 2006.

   [RFC5245]  Rosenberg, J., "Interactive Connectivity Establishment
              (ICE): A Protocol for Network Address Translator (NAT)
              Traversal for Offer/Answer Protocols", RFC 5245,
              April 2010.

   [RFC5764]  McGrew, D. and E. Rescorla, "Datagram Transport Layer
              Security (DTLS) Extension to Establish Keys for the Secure
              Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP)", RFC 5764, May 2010.


Author's Address

   Eric Rescorla
   RTFM, Inc.
   2064 Edgewood Drive
   Palo Alto, CA  94303
   USA

   Phone:  +1 650 678 2350
   Email:  ekr@rtfm.com












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