Security and Privacy Considerations for IPv6 Address Generation Mechanisms
RFC 7721
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) A. Cooper
Request for Comments: 7721 Cisco
Category: Informational F. Gont
ISSN: 2070-1721 Huawei Technologies
D. Thaler
Microsoft
March 2016
Security and Privacy Considerations for
IPv6 Address Generation Mechanisms
Abstract
This document discusses privacy and security considerations for
several IPv6 address generation mechanisms, both standardized and
non-standardized. It evaluates how different mechanisms mitigate
different threats and the trade-offs that implementors, developers,
and users face in choosing different addresses or address generation
mechanisms.
Status of This Memo
This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
published for informational purposes.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Not all documents
approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7721.
Cooper, et al. Informational [Page 1]
RFC 7721 IPv6 Address Generation Privacy March 2016
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2016 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
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described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Weaknesses in IEEE-Identifier-Based IIDs . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.1. Correlation of Activities over Time . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2. Location Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.3. Address Scanning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.4. Device-Specific Vulnerability Exploitation . . . . . . . 7
4. Privacy and Security Properties of Address Generation
Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.1. IEEE-Identifier-Based IIDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.2. Static, Manually Configured IIDs . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.3. Constant, Semantically Opaque IIDs . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.4. Cryptographically Generated IIDs . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.5. Stable, Semantically Opaque IIDs . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.6. Temporary IIDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.7. DHCPv6 Generation of IIDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.8. Transition and Coexistence Technologies . . . . . . . . . 12
5. Miscellaneous Issues with IPv6 Addressing . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.1. Network Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.2. Compliance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.3. Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
7.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
7.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Cooper, et al. Informational [Page 2]
RFC 7721 IPv6 Address Generation Privacy March 2016
1. Introduction
IPv6 was designed to improve upon IPv4 in many respects, and
mechanisms for address assignment were one such area for improvement.
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