Last Call Review of draft-camarillo-rai-media-policy-dataset-
review-camarillo-rai-media-policy-dataset-secdir-lc-sheffer-2012-06-19-00

I have reviewed this document as part of the security directorate's 


ongoing effort to review all IETF documents being processed by the IESG. 


These comments were written primarily for the benefit of the security 


area directors.  Document editors and WG chairs should treat these 


comments just like any other last call comments.




Summary



Nothing much here - this is not where the security action is. However a 


companion document may need some deeper security review.




Details



This draft defines the contents/format of a media document. The document 


allows a SIP policy server to dictate the media policy that should be 


implemented by a UA, in general or on a per-session basis.






• The draft requires that all documents be well-formed and valid XML, 


which is good - not only for security.


• The real security stuff is in draft-ietf-sipping-policy-package-08. I 


will not review that document here, but I find it puzzling that session 


(media) information is transmitted/secured along with session encryption 


keys. Mixing together data of such disparate security sensitivity levels 


is likely to result in either over-engineering or under-security.


• Reading further down the said security considerations, this issue is 


addressed ("the user agent should not insert" etc.), but none of that 


discussion is normative!


• Moreover, recent discussion on SAAG 


(

http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/saag/current/msg03695.html

) 


suggests that some of the security solutions mandated by the Policy 


Package draft as well as the current draft are, to put it mildly, not 


widely implemented.


•  Back to the current document. Re: XML security considerations, please 


reference the security considerations of RFC 3470, and possibly also: 


Marsh, J., Orchard, D., and D. Veillard, "XML Inclusions (XInclude) 


Version 1.0 (Second Edition)", World Wide Web Consortium Recommendation 


REC-xinclude-20061115, November 2006, 


<

http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xinclude-20061115

>.




Thanks,
    Yaron