[Olsr-users] PKI architecture for freifunk/funkfeier[was Rogue gateways]

[Henning Rogge]

Am Friday 30 January 2009 12:06:31 schrieb ZioPRoTo (Saverio Proto):
> > My idea is that each gateway to the internet set up it's own PKI root
> > key. The owners of the gateways can build something like a web of trust
> > between each other.
> >
> > Each user who is starting a new node has to download/choose a gateway as
> > his primary uplink and will a "chain of trust" for the rest of the
> > gateways.
>
> Why you want to introduce a hierarchy when it is not needed ?? Why
> don't just introduce the web of trust between all the nodes ??
The idea behind the "mini CAs" for each gateway was to reduce the length of 
trust chains and number of "root certificates" a node has to know. RSA 
operations are expensive.

> [..CUT..]
>
> >If a network starts misbehaving, the other gateways
> > can cancel their trust and ask the user not to choose this gateway as the
> > originator for the chain of trust. But the ultimate responsibility who
> > has the authority in the network is still in the hand of the user (by
> > choosing his "master" gateway).
>
> [..CUT..]
>
> What you mean with "if a network starts misbehaving" ? Because this is
> exactly the point !
I think the easiest way to detect misbehaving nodes is on layer 8...

> You deploy a Web Of Trust or PKI/PMI to enforce a security policy.
No... I would like to have a PKI to have end-to-end encryption in OLSR 
networks, so we don't have to send traffic unencrypted through the cloud 
(where anyone outside the net just needs a wlan sniffer to log your traffic)

> Now to enforce a security policy you must be able to detect abuse !!
> I don't see the big problem in building a good web of trust (see
> previous email describing the OLSR web of trust plugin) nor in
> extending PGP to support security policies ... I see the big problem
> in building a fair reputation system and le the nodes detect
> abuses/attacks correctly :)
the PKI infrastructure is not able to secure the routing traffic in large 
networks because our hardware is to slow to run an asymmetric encryption for 
each routing package.

> > What do you think about a structure like this ? Would this be an
> > acceptable base we can use to build a security framework ?
>
> I don't know if you read the emails I sent about 15 minutes ago :) I'm
> happy to brainstorm with you guys on this topics :)
I completely agree to this... some more brainstorming about this topic cannot 
hurt.

If we ever want to do some internal security (against routing attacks for 
example) we will have to use faster hardware or we have to use the PKI to 
"bootstrap" some symmetric key system. But I was unable to find any good 
authentification system for broadcasts based on symmetric key algorithms !

Henning

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Diplom Informatiker Henning Rogge
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Angewandte Naturwissenschaften e. V. (FGAN) 
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