4 Possible SILC protocol and specification document changes. All of these
5 are tentative and doesn't mean that any of them would be done at any
8 o Full rework of the documents as requested by RFC Editor. The plan
9 is to create only two documents:
11 silc-architecture-xx.txt
12 silc-specification-xx.txt
14 o Make @ reserved character in channel names. Accept channel@server
15 names in all commands and notify types.
17 o Add acknowlegments section to specification documents.
19 o Group Diffie-Hellman protocol for establishig key with two or more
22 o Extend the Channel ID port to be actually a counter, allowing the
23 2^32 channels per cell, instead of 2^16 like now. The port with
24 compliant implementation would always be 706, and it could be used
25 as a counter, starting from 706... For interop, with old code.
27 o In SKE with UDP/IP responder doesn't have to do retransmissions.
28 Initiator will retransmit its packet. Initiator can be considered
29 the one that actually WANTs to establish the keys. So no need for
30 responder to retransmit. Define this clearly in the specs.
32 o Dynamic server and router connections, ala Jabber. SILC has allowed
33 this from the beginning. It should be written out clearly in the
34 specs. Connection would be created with nick strings (which are of
37 o Counter block send/receive IV 64 bits instead of 32 bits, and the
38 value itself is used as 64-bit MSB ordered counter, which must
39 be reset before the packet sequence counter wraps. It's basically
40 a counter which is initially set to a random value. (***DONE)
42 o Nickname to NEW_CLIENT packet. (***DONE)
44 o Add Source and Destination ID in message MAC computation to fully
45 associate the Message Payload with the true sender and the true
46 recipient of the message. This will fix some security issues that
47 currently exists. It is currently possible in some specific set of
48 conditions to mount a replay attack using Message Payload. This change
49 will remove the possibility of these attacks.
51 After including Source and Destination ID in message MAC, ONLY replay
52 attack possible is the following and with ONLY following conditions:
54 1. the attacker is able to record encrypted Message Payloads and has
55 the ability to replay them.
56 2. the message payload is encrypted with static private message key
57 3. the original sender of the message is not anymore in the network,
58 has changed nickname, has detached and resumed, or has reconnected
60 4. the original receiver of the message is still in the network, has
61 not changed nickname, has not detached and resumed, and has not
62 reconnected to any other server, or, some other user has the same
64 5. the attacker is able to get the same client ID as the original
66 6. the original receiver still has the static key set for the same
67 remote client ID (for original sender's client ID).
69 All this is possible to happen though likelyhood is quite small. It
70 does illustrate how inappropriate the use of static keys is. (***DONE)
72 o The SILC public key identifier separator is ', ' not ','. The
73 whitespace is mandatory. (***DONE)
75 o Definition of EAP as new authentication method for connection auth
78 o Count limit to LIST command?
80 o Strict announces if Channel ID is different than on router? To not
81 allow any modes, topic, etc changes from server if the ID was wrong
82 initially? Meaning: riding with netsplits not possible since the
83 channel created during split will not enforce is modes to the
84 router. Or more liberal solution, like now? Read emails on
85 silc-users. (This is very old issue)
87 o The time values in STATS is 32-bits. After 2038 it's over 32-bits.
89 o Consider for future authenticated encryption modes.