November 7, 2014 archive

Nov 07

Comments? What Can We Learn From Existing DANE Deployments?

IETF LogoWhat can we learn from existing deployments of the DANE protocol?  As more people start implementing DANE in their applications, are there lessons we can learn to feed back into the standards development process?  What are the barriers people are finding to using DANE? How can we help accelerate the deployment of DANE and DNSSEC?

As I mentioned in my Rough Guide to IETF 91 post and also my post here on Deploy360, I have a short bit of time at the end of the DANE Working Group agenda on next Wednesday, November 12, 2014, to raise these questions and try to get some feedback. To help with that, I wrote an Internet-Draft that you can find at:

https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-york-dane-deployment-observations

In the document, I outline some of the concerns and issues that I have observed related to DANE deployment, including:

  • Lack of awareness of DANE
  • Challenges creating TLSA records
  • Inability to enter TLSA records at DNS hosting operators
  • Availability of developer libraries
  • Perception that DANE is only for self-signed certificates
  • Performance concerns
  • Cryptographic concerns

I then offered these questions for discussion:

  • What roadblocks are people running into with implementing DANE? (outside of the broader issue of getting DNSSEC validation and signing more widely available) are there lessons we can feed back into our process of developing DANE-related standards?
  • Are there more “Using DANE with <foo>” types of documents that we can or should create? (And who is willing to do so?)
  • Are there some good examples/case studies of DANE implementations that we could perhaps capture as informational RFCs? (The Jabber community’s implementation comes to mind)
  • Are there places where it would be helpful if there were reference implementations of DANE support? For example, DANE for email got a boost when support was added to postfix. Are there other commonly-used open source projects where the addition of DANE support would help move deployment along?
  • Are there test tools that need to be developed? Or existing ones that need to be better promoted? Are there interop tests we can arrange?

I’m looking forward to the discussion on Wednesday… but I also welcome any comments you may have NOW on this topic.  You are welcome to send comments directly to me, send them to the DANE mailing list (you need to subscribe first), post them here as comments to this article – or post them on any of the social networks where this post appears. (although either email or posting the comments here on our site are the best ways to make sure I actually see your comments)

What can we learn from DANE deployment so far – and how can we use that to help get more DANE usage happening?

Nov 07

Call For Participation For ICANN 52 DNSSEC Workshop In Singapore

ICANN 52 LogoIf you will be attending ICANN 52 in Singapore in February 2015 and work with DNSSEC or DANE , we are seeking speakers for the ICANN 52 DNSSEC Workshop to be held on Wednesday, February 11, 2015.

The full Call for Participation is included below, but the key point is – we are looking for proposals from people who want to talk about interesting, innovative and new ways they are using DNSSEC or DANE … new tools… new services… new research … new case studies… demos of new tools/services…  basically any new information that can help people understand better the value of DNSSEC and DANE and also the ways in which it can be more easily implemented and used.

Speaking at an ICANN DNSSEC Workshop is a great way to get your ideas and information out to members of the DNSSEC technical community – and the sessions are also archived and viewed by people long after the event is over.

If you are interested in participating, please send a brief (1-2 sentence) description of your proposed presentation to dnssec-singapore@isoc.org by Wednesday, 03 December 2014.

Call for Participation — ICANN DNSSEC Workshop at ICANN 52 in Singapore

The DNSSEC Deployment Initiative and the Internet Society Deploy360 Programme, in cooperation with the ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC), are planning a DNSSEC Workshop at the ICANN 52 meeting on 11 February 2015 in Singapore. The DNSSEC Workshop has been a part of ICANN meetings for several years and has provided a forum for both experienced and new people to meet, present and discuss current and future DNSSEC deployments. For reference, the most recent session was held at the ICANN meeting in Los Angeles on 15 October 2014. The presentations and transcripts are available at: http://la51.icann.org/en/schedule/wed-dnssec.

We are seeking presentations on the following topics:

1. DNSSEC activities in Asia

For this panel we are seeking participation from those who have been involved in DNSSEC deployment in Asia and also from those who have not deployed DNSSEC but who have a keen interest in the challenges and benefits of deployment. In particular, we will consider the following questions: What can DNSSEC do for you? What doesn’t it do? What are the internal tradeoffs to implementing DNSSEC? What did you learn in your deployment of DNSSEC? We are interested in presentations from both people involved with the signing of domains and people involved with the deployment of DNSSEC-validating DNS resolvers.

2. Potential impacts of Root Key Rollover

Given many concerns about the need to do a Root Key Rollover, we would like to bring together a panel of people who can talk about what the potential impacts may be to ISPs, equipment providers and end users, and also what can be done to potentially mitigate those issues. In particular, we are seeking participation from vendors, ISPs, and the community that will be affected by distribution of new root keys. We would like to be able to offer suggestions out of this panel to the wider technical community. If you have a specific concern about the Root Key Rollover, or believe you have a method or solution to help address impacts, we would like to hear from you.

3. New gTLD registries and administrators implementing DNSSEC

With the launch of the new gTLDs, we are interested in hearing from registries and operators of new gTLDs about what systems and processes they have implemented to support DNSSEC. As more gTLDs are launched, is there DNSSEC-related information that can be shared to help those launches go easier?

4. Guidance for Registrars in supporting DNSSEC

The 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) for registrars and resellers requires them to support DNSSEC from January 1, 2014. We are seeking presentations discussing:
* What are the specific technical requirements of the RAA and how can registrars meet those requirements?
* What tools and systems are available for registrars that include DNSSEC support?
* What information do registrars need to provide to resellers and ultimately customers?

We are particularly interested in hearing from registrars who have signed the 2013 RAA and have either already implemented DNSSEC support or have a plan for doing so.

5. APIs between the Registrars and DNS hosting operators

One specific area that has been identified as needing focus is the communication between registrars and DNS hosting operators, specifically when these functions are provided by different entities. Currently, the communication, such as the transfer of a DS record, often occurs by way of the domain name holder copying and pasting information from one web interface to another. How can this be automated? We would welcome presentations by either registrars or DNS hosting operators who have implemented APIs for the communication of DNSSEC information, or from people with ideas around how such APIs could be constructed.

6. Implementing DNSSEC validation at Internet Service Providers (ISPs)

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) play a critical role by enabling DNSSEC validation for the caching DNS resolvers used by their customers. We have now seen massive rollouts of DNSSEC validation within large North American ISPs and at ISPs around the world. We are interested in presentations on topics such as:
* What does an ISP need to do to prepare its network for implementing DNSSEC validation?
* How does an ISP need to prepare its support staff and technical staff for the rollout of DNSSEC validation?
* What measurements are available about the degree of DNSSEC validation currently deployed?
* What tools are available to help an ISP deploy DNSSEC validation?
* What are the practical server-sizing impacts of enabling DNSSEC validation on ISP DNS Resolvers (ex. cost, memory, CPU, bandwidth, technical support, etc.)?

7. The operational realities of running DNSSEC

Now that DNSSEC has become an operational norm for many registries, registrars, and ISPs, what have we learned about how we manage DNSSEC? What is the best practice around key rollovers? How often do you review your disaster recovery procedures? Is there operational familiarity within your customer support teams? What operational statistics have we gathered about DNSSEC? Are there experiences being documented in the form of best practices, or something similar, for transfer of signed zones?

8. DNSSEC automation

For DNSSEC to reach massive deployment levels it is clear that a higher level of automation is required than is currently available. Topics for which we would like to see presentations include:
* What tools, systems and services are available to help automate DNSSEC key management?
* Can you provide an analysis of current tools/services and identify gaps?
* Where are the best opportunities for automation within DNSSEC signing and validation processes?
* What are the costs and benefits of different approaches to automation?

9. When unexpected DNSSEC events occur

What have we learned from some of the operational outages that we have seen over the past 18 months? Are there lessons that we can pass on to those just about to implement DNSSEC? How do you manage dissemination of information about the outage? What have you learned about communications planning? Do you have a route to ISPs and registrars? How do you liaise with your CERT community?

10. DANE and DNSSEC applications

There is strong interest for DANE usage within web transactions as well as for securing email and Voice-over-IP (VoIP). We are seeking presentations on topics such as:
* What are some of the new and innovative uses of DANE and other DNSSEC applications in new areas or industries?
* What tools and services are now available that can support DANE usage?
* How soon could DANE and other DNSSEC applications become a deployable reality?
* How can the industry use DANE and other DNSSEC applications as a mechanism for creating a more secure Internet?

We would be particularly interested in any live demonstrations of DNSSEC / DANE applications and services. For example, a demonstration of the actual process of setting up a site with a certificate stored in a TLSA record that correctly validates would be welcome. Demonstrations of new tools that make the setup of DNSSEC or DANE more automated would also be welcome.

11. DANE / DNSSEC as a way to secure email

The DNS-based Authentication of Named Entities (DANE) protocol is an exciting development where DNSSEC can be used to provide a strong additional trust layer for traditional SSL/TLS certificates. We are both pleased and intrigued by the growing usage of DANE and DNSSEC as a means of providing added security for email. Multiple email servers have added support for DANE records to secure TLS/SSL connections. Some email providers are marketing DNSSEC/DANE support. We would like to have a panel at ICANN 51 focusing on this particular usage of DANE. Are you a developer of an email server or client supporting DANE? Do you provide DANE / DNSSEC support in your email service? Can you provide a brief case study of what you have done to implement DANE / DNSSEC? Can you talk about any lessons you learned in the process?

12. DNSSEC and DANE in the enterprise

Enterprises can play a critical role in both providing DNSSEC validation to their internal networks and also through signing of the domains owned by the enterprise. We are seeking presentations from enterprises that have implemented DNSSEC on validation and/or signing processes and can address questions such as:
* What are the benefits to enterprises of rolling out DNSSEC validation? And how do they do so?
* What are the challenges to deployment for these organizations and how could DANE and other DNSSEC applications address those challenges?
* How should an enterprise best prepare its IT staff and network to implement DNSSEC?
* What tools and systems are available to assist enterprises in the deployment of DNSSEC?
* How can the DANE protocol be used within an enterprise to bring a higher level of security to transactions using SSL/TLS certificates?

13. Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) use cases and innovation

We are interested in demonstrations of HSMs, presentations of HSM-related innovations and real world use cases of HSMs and key management.

In addition, we welcome suggestions for additional topics.

If you are interested in participating, please send a brief (1-2 sentence) description of your proposed presentation to dnssec-singapore@isoc.org by **Wednesday, 03 December 2014**

We hope that you can join us.

Thank you,

Julie Hedlund

On behalf of the DNSSEC Workshop Program Committee:
Mark Elkins, DNS/ZACR
Cath Goulding, Nominet UK
Jean Robert Hountomey, AfricaCERT
Jacques Latour, .CA
Xiaodong Lee, CNNIC
Luciano Minuchin, NIC.AR
Russ Mundy, Parsons
Ondřej Surý, CZ.NIC
Yoshiro Yoneya, JPRS
Dan York, Internet Society

Nov 07

Call For Participation – DNSSEC Workshop at ICANN 52 in Singapore

ICANN 52 Singapore logoWill you be attending ICANN 52 in Singapore in February 2015?

If so, and if you work with DNSSEC or DANE , we are seeking speakers for the ICANN 52 DNSSEC Workshop to be held on Wednesday, February 11, 2015.

The full Call for Participation is included below, but the key point is – we are looking for proposals from people who want to talk about interesting, innovative and new ways they are using DNSSEC or DANE … new tools… new services… new research … new case studies… demos of new tools/services…  basically any new information that can help people understand better the value of DNSSEC and DANE and also the ways in which it can be more easily implemented and used.

Speaking at an ICANN DNSSEC Workshop is a great way to get your ideas and information out to members of the DNSSEC technical community – and the sessions are also archived and viewed by people long after the event is over.

If you are interested in participating, please send a brief (1-2 sentence) description of your proposed presentation to dnssec-singapore@isoc.org by Wednesday, 03 December 2014.

Call for Participation — ICANN DNSSEC Workshop at ICANN 52 in Singapore

The DNSSEC Deployment Initiative and the Internet Society Deploy360 Programme, in cooperation with the ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC), are planning a DNSSEC Workshop at the ICANN 52 meeting on 11 February 2015 in Singapore. The DNSSEC Workshop has been a part of ICANN meetings for several years and has provided a forum for both experienced and new people to meet, present and discuss current and future DNSSEC deployments. For reference, the most recent session was held at the ICANN meeting in Los Angeles on 15 October 2014. The presentations and transcripts are available at: http://la51.icann.org/en/schedule/wed-dnssec.

We are seeking presentations on the following topics:

  1. DNSSEC activities in Asia

For this panel we are seeking participation from those who have been involved in DNSSEC deployment in Asia and also from those who have not deployed DNSSEC but who have a keen interest in the challenges and benefits of deployment. In particular, we will consider the following questions: What can DNSSEC do for you? What doesn’t it do? What are the internal tradeoffs to implementing DNSSEC? What did you learn in your deployment of DNSSEC? We are interested in presentations from both people involved with the signing of domains and people involved with the deployment of DNSSEC-validating DNS resolvers.

  1. Potential impacts of Root Key Rollover

Given many concerns about the need to do a Root Key Rollover, we would like to bring together a panel of people who can talk about what the potential impacts may be to ISPs, equipment providers and end users, and also what can be done to potentially mitigate those issues. In particular, we are seeking participation from vendors, ISPs, and the community that will be affected by distribution of new root keys. We would like to be able to offer suggestions out of this panel to the wider technical community. If you have a specific concern about the Root Key Rollover, or believe you have a method or solution to help address impacts, we would like to hear from you.

  1. New gTLD registries and administrators implementing DNSSEC

With the launch of the new gTLDs, we are interested in hearing from registries and operators of new gTLDs about what systems and processes they have implemented to support DNSSEC. As more gTLDs are launched, is there DNSSEC-related information that can be shared to help those launches go easier?

  1. Guidance for Registrars in supporting DNSSEC

The 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) for registrars and resellers requires them to support DNSSEC from January 1, 2014. We are seeking presentations discussing:
* What are the specific technical requirements of the RAA and how can registrars meet those requirements?
* What tools and systems are available for registrars that include DNSSEC support?
* What information do registrars need to provide to resellers and ultimately customers?

We are particularly interested in hearing from registrars who have signed the 2013 RAA and have either already implemented DNSSEC support or have a plan for doing so.

  1. APIs between the Registrars and DNS hosting operators

One specific area that has been identified as needing focus is the communication between registrars and DNS hosting operators, specifically when these functions are provided by different entities. Currently, the communication, such as the transfer of a DS record, often occurs by way of the domain name holder copying and pasting information from one web interface to another. How can this be automated? We would welcome presentations by either registrars or DNS hosting operators who have implemented APIs for the communication of DNSSEC information, or from people with ideas around how such APIs could be constructed.

  1. Implementing DNSSEC validation at Internet Service Providers (ISPs)

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) play a critical role by enabling DNSSEC validation for the caching DNS resolvers used by their customers. We have now seen massive rollouts of DNSSEC validation within large North American ISPs and at ISPs around the world. We are interested in presentations on topics such as:
* What does an ISP need to do to prepare its network for implementing DNSSEC validation?
* How does an ISP need to prepare its support staff and technical staff for the rollout of DNSSEC validation?
* What measurements are available about the degree of DNSSEC validation currently deployed?
* What tools are available to help an ISP deploy DNSSEC validation?
* What are the practical server-sizing impacts of enabling DNSSEC validation on ISP DNS Resolvers (ex. cost, memory, CPU, bandwidth, technical support, etc.)?

  1. The operational realities of running DNSSEC

Now that DNSSEC has become an operational norm for many registries, registrars, and ISPs, what have we learned about how we manage DNSSEC? What is the best practice around key rollovers? How often do you review your disaster recovery procedures? Is there operational familiarity within your customer support teams? What operational statistics have we gathered about DNSSEC? Are there experiences being documented in the form of best practices, or something similar, for transfer of signed zones?

  1. DNSSEC automation

For DNSSEC to reach massive deployment levels it is clear that a higher level of automation is required than is currently available. Topics for which we would like to see presentations include:
* What tools, systems and services are available to help automate DNSSEC key management?
* Can you provide an analysis of current tools/services and identify gaps?
* Where are the best opportunities for automation within DNSSEC signing and validation processes?
* What are the costs and benefits of different approaches to automation?

  1. When unexpected DNSSEC events occur

What have we learned from some of the operational outages that we have seen over the past 18 months? Are there lessons that we can pass on to those just about to implement DNSSEC? How do you manage dissemination of information about the outage? What have you learned about communications planning? Do you have a route to ISPs and registrars? How do you liaise with your CERT community?

  1. DANE and DNSSEC applications

There is strong interest for DANE usage within web transactions as well as for securing email and Voice-over-IP (VoIP). We are seeking presentations on topics such as:
* What are some of the new and innovative uses of DANE and other DNSSEC applications in new areas or industries?
* What tools and services are now available that can support DANE usage?
* How soon could DANE and other DNSSEC applications become a deployable reality?
* How can the industry use DANE and other DNSSEC applications as a mechanism for creating a more secure Internet?

We would be particularly interested in any live demonstrations of DNSSEC / DANE applications and services. For example, a demonstration of the actual process of setting up a site with a certificate stored in a TLSA record that correctly validates would be welcome. Demonstrations of new tools that make the setup of DNSSEC or DANE more automated would also be welcome.

  1. DANE / DNSSEC as a way to secure email

The DNS-based Authentication of Named Entities (DANE) protocol is an exciting development where DNSSEC can be used to provide a strong additional trust layer for traditional SSL/TLS certificates. We are both pleased and intrigued by the growing usage of DANE and DNSSEC as a means of providing added security for email. Multiple email servers have added support for DANE records to secure TLS/SSL connections. Some email providers are marketing DNSSEC/DANE support. We would like to have a panel at ICANN 51 focusing on this particular usage of DANE. Are you a developer of an email server or client supporting DANE? Do you provide DANE / DNSSEC support in your email service? Can you provide a brief case study of what you have done to implement DANE / DNSSEC? Can you talk about any lessons you learned in the process?

  1. DNSSEC and DANE in the enterprise

Enterprises can play a critical role in both providing DNSSEC validation to their internal networks and also through signing of the domains owned by the enterprise. We are seeking presentations from enterprises that have implemented DNSSEC on validation and/or signing processes and can address questions such as:
* What are the benefits to enterprises of rolling out DNSSEC validation? And how do they do so?
* What are the challenges to deployment for these organizations and how could DANE and other DNSSEC applications address those challenges?
* How should an enterprise best prepare its IT staff and network to implement DNSSEC?
* What tools and systems are available to assist enterprises in the deployment of DNSSEC?
* How can the DANE protocol be used within an enterprise to bring a higher level of security to transactions using SSL/TLS certificates?

  1. Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) use cases and innovation

We are interested in demonstrations of HSMs, presentations of HSM-related innovations and real world use cases of HSMs and key management.

In addition, we welcome suggestions for additional topics.

If you are interested in participating, please send a brief (1-2 sentence) description of your proposed presentation to dnssec-singapore@isoc.org by Wednesday, 03 December 2014

We hope that you can join us.

Thank you,

Julie Hedlund

On behalf of the DNSSEC Workshop Program Committee:
Mark Elkins, DNS/ZACR
Cath Goulding, Nominet UK
Jean Robert Hountomey, AfricaCERT
Jacques Latour, .CA
Xiaodong Lee, CNNIC
Luciano Minuchin, NIC.AR
Russ Mundy, Parsons
Ondřej Surý, CZ.NIC
Yoshiro Yoneya, JPRS
Dan York, Internet Society

Nov 07

Two More Rough Guides To IETF 91 On IPv6 And Security / TLS

IETF LogoTwo more “Rough Guide to IETF 91″ posts have been published that may be of interest to Deploy360 readers:

and

Phil’s post naturally talks about all the great work related to IPv6 happening within the various working groups at IETF 91 next week.  The reality is that IPv6 is now the main IP protocol discussed in so many different working groups – and all new work is assumed that it will (or must) work on IPv6 … and so IPv6 discussions are taking place in many different places.   You can expect that you’ll find members of the Deploy360 team in the dedicated IPv6 sessions Phil mentions!

Karen’s post highlights a number of the security and privacy efforts under way within the IETF and IAB.  She also mentions the TLS working group and the Using TLA in Applications (UTA) working groups, both of which are important to the TLS in Applications topic area we have here on Deploy360.

Combined with all the activities related to DNSSEC / DANE and all the activities related to routing security/resiliency … it’s going to be a very busy week next week!  We’re looking forward to it and to meeting up with many of you.

In the meantime, if you’d like to get started with IPv6 or TLS, please visit our Start Here page to begin!

Nov 07

CloudFlare Writes About DNSSEC Complexities And Considerations

CloudFlare logoThe folks over at CloudFlare published another great article earlier this week, “DNSSEC: Complexities and Considerations” that dives into more detail about some of the challenges of implementing DNSSEC.  Specifically, author Nick Sullivan explores the:

  • Exposure of DNS zone content through zone-walking
  • DNSSEC key management
  • DNS reflection/amplification attacks

He dives into the topics in great detail and explains what CloudFlare is planning to do to address each of these issues.  I strongly encourage you to check it out!

And then if you want to start implementing DNSSEC or DANE within your own environment, please visit our Start Here page to get started!

Nov 07

IETF 91 Rough Guide On Routing Resilience And Security – De-aggregation, Route Leaks and more

IETF LogoWhat will be happening next week at IETF 91 with regard to improving the security and resilience of the Internet’s routing infrastructure?

Our colleague Andrei Robachevsky tackles this question in his post this week: “Rough Guide to IETF 91: Routing Resilience & Security“.

Andrei explains that one of the major issues in routing right now is the growth in the size of the global routing tables and the growth of “de-aggregation”… and the challenges that lie therein.  He also writes about “route leaks” and what is being done to address this issue and he writes about the ongoing work related to RPKI in the SIDR working group.

He finishes up talking about the MANRS initiative announced yesterday  and how that can help with overall routing security and resiliency.

Please do read Andrei’s Rough Guide post … and then do check out our topic areas on Securing BGP and Anti-spoofing to learn more about how you can secure your routing infrastructure.  We will look forward to seeing some of you next week at IETF 91!

Nov 07

FIR On Technology Episode 2 – Known and the Indie Web

Firontechnology 300What is “Known” and how does it relate to the IndieWeb? What is the difference between the Known software and the Withknown hosted platform? How do these compare to the new Ello social network? And what value are any of these to communicators?

Back on October 29, I released episode 2 of "FIR On Technology with Dan York" where I had a discussion with Shel Holtz about the new Known platform and what it can do. If you haven't taken a listen yet, I encourage you to do so!

I would also encourage you to read my article from September 26: "The Importance of The 'Known' Publishing Platform And The Rise Of The Indie Web", as that was the basis of what got me interested in Known.

Please do explore, too, the lengthy list of links in the show notes that connect you to many different aspects of the Known project as well as to the larger IndieWeb movement.

As I noted, I am experimenting a bit with the hosted version of Known at http://danyork.withknown.com/. I'll be quite honest and say that I'm not yet ready to replace one of my primary publishing platforms... but I'm intrigued by what they are doing with Known and have been watching the ongoing updates to the platform on Github.

I have some ideas for some future projects and might consider Known... although I must admit that most of my work these days is heavily invested in WordPress and I'm trying not to have too many more platforms. However, there are some projects that don't need the full power that WordPress provides - and they might be perfect for what Known is trying to do.

Regardless, I think it's great to have another potential publishing platform out there - and I very much like the ideals of the IndieWeb movement!

Anyway... please do enjoy episode #2 of FIR On Technology - and please do let me know that you think of the podcast!

If you found this post interesting or useful, please consider either:

Nov 07

Video: BIND and DNSSEC – What Is New?

How does BIND work with DNSSEC? How easy is it to configure? What new features does it have that makes DNSSEC signing simple? How does it work as a DNSSEC-validating resolver? To answer these questions, I interviewed Eddy Winstead about BIND and what it can do with DNSSEC. We discussed BIND’s features as well as new training programs and documentation. It was an enjoyable interview that we recorded while Eddy and I were both at ICANN 51 in Los Angeles.  You can read more and download BIND from http://www.isc.org/ and more information about DNSSEC can be found from our Start Here page.

Enjoy!

Nov 07

“Innovation requires serendipity.” – Eli Pariser in “The Filter Bubble”

"Innovation requires serendipity." - Eli Pariser in "The Filter Bubble"