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Gossiping in CT
draft-linus-trans-gossip-ct-01

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This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Replaced".
Authors Linus Nordberg , Daniel Kahn Gillmor
Last updated 2015-03-09
Replaced by draft-ietf-trans-gossip
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draft-linus-trans-gossip-ct-01
TRANS                                                        L. Nordberg
Internet-Draft                                                  NORDUnet
Intended status: Experimental                                 D. Gillmor
Expires: September 10, 2015                                         ACLU
                                                          March 09, 2015

                            Gossiping in CT
                     draft-linus-trans-gossip-ct-01

Abstract

   This document describes two gossiping mechanisms for Certificate
   Transparency [RFC6962]; SCT feedback and STH gossip.  In order for
   HTTPS clients to share SCTs with CT auditors in a privacy-preserving
   manner they send SCTs to originating HTTP servers which in turn share
   the SCTs with CT auditors.  CT auditors and monitors share STHs among
   each other.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
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   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on September 10, 2015.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2015 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
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of

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   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Who should gossip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  What to gossip about and how  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     3.1.  SCT feedback  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
       3.1.1.  HTTPS client to server  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
       3.1.2.  HTTPS server to auditors  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
       3.1.3.  SCT feedback data format  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     3.2.  STH gossip  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   4.  Security considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     4.1.  Privacy considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
       4.1.1.  Privacy and SCTs  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
       4.1.2.  Privacy in SCT feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
       4.1.3.  Privacy in STH gossip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   5.  IANA considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   6.  Contributors  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   7.  ChangeLog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     7.1.  Changes between -00 and -01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   8.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9

1.  Problem

   Public append-only untrusted logs have to be monitored for
   consistency, i.e. that they should never rewrite history.  Monitors
   and other log clients need to exchange information about monitored
   logs in order to be able to detect a partitioning attack.

   A partitioning attack is when a log serves different views of the log
   to different clients.  Each client would be able to verify the
   append-only nature of the log while in the extreme case being the
   only client seeing this particular view.

   Gossiping about what's known about logs helps solving the problem of
   detecting malicious or compromised logs mounting such a partitioning
   attack.  We want some side of the partitioned tree, and ideally both
   sides, to see the other side.

   Disseminating known information about a log poses a potential threat
   to the privacy of end users.  Gossiping about data which is linkable
   to a specific log entry and by that to a specific site has to take
   privacy considerations into account in order not to leak sensitive
   information.

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2.  Who should gossip

   o  HTTPS clients and servers (SCT feedback)

   o  HTTPS servers and CT auditors (SCT feedback)

   o  CT auditors and monitors (STH gossip)

3.  What to gossip about and how

   There are two separate gossip streams:

   o  SCT feedback, transporting SCTs from clients to auditors

   o  STH gossip, sharing STHs between auditors/monitors

3.1.  SCT feedback

   The goal of SCT feedback is for clients to share SCTs and certificate
   chains with CT auditors and monitors in a privacy-preserving manner.

   HTTPS clients store SCTs and certificate chains they see and later
   send them to originating HTTPS servers by posting them to a .well-
   known URL.  This is described in Section 3.1.1.

   HTTPS servers store SCTs and certificate chains received from clients
   and later share them with CT auditors by either posting them or
   making them available on a .well-known URL.  This is described in
   Section 3.1.2.

   HTTPS clients MAY send SCTs and cert chains directly to auditors.
   Note that there are privacy implications of doing so, outlined in
   Section 4.1.1.

3.1.1.  HTTPS client to server

   An HTTPS client connects to an HTTPS server for a particular domain.
   The client receives a set of SCTs as part of the TLS handshake.  The
   client MUST discard SCTs that are not signed by a known log and
   SHOULD store the remaining SCTs together with the corresponding
   certificate chain for later retrieval.

   When the client later reconnects to any HTTPS server for the same
   domain it again receives a set of SCTs.  The client MUST update its
   store of SCTs for the domain and MUST send to the server the ones in
   its store that were not received from that server.

   Note that the SCT store also contains SCTs received in certificates.

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   The client MUST NOT send the same set of SCTs to the same server more
   often than TBD.

   An SCT MUST NOT be sent to any other HTTPS server than one serving
   the domain that the certificate signed by the SCT refers to.

   SCTs and corresponding certificates are POSTed to the originating
   HTTPS server at the well-known URL:

   https://<domain>/.well-known/ct/v1/sct-feedback

   The data sent in the POST is defined in Section 3.1.3.

   HTTPS servers MUST perform a number of sanity checks on SCTs from
   clients before storing them:

   1.  if a bit-wise compare of the SCT matches one already in the
       store, discard

   2.  if the SCT can't be verified to be a valid SCT for the
       accompanying leaf cert, issued by a known log, discard

   3.  if the leaf cert is not for a domain that the server is
       authoritative for, discard

   Check number 1 is a pure optimisation.  Check number 2 is to prevent
   spamming and attacks where an adversary can fill up the store prior
   to attacking a client.  Check number 3 is to help misbehaving clients
   from leaking what sites they visit.

3.1.2.  HTTPS server to auditors

   HTTPS servers receiving SCTs from clients SHOULD share SCTs and
   certificate chains with CT auditors by either providing the well-
   known URL:

   https://<domain>/.well-known/ct/v1/sct-gossip

   or by HTTPS POSTing them to a number of preconfigured auditors.

   The data received in a GET of the well-known URL or sent in the POST
   is defined in Section 3.1.3.

   HTTPS servers SHOULD share all SCTs and certificate data they see
   that pass the checks above, but MAY as an optimisation chose to not
   share SCTs that the operator consider legitimate.  An example of a
   legitimate SCT might be one that was received from a CA as part of

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   acquisition of a certificate.  Another example is an SCT received
   directly from a CT log when submitting a certificate chain.

   HTTPS servers MUST NOT share any other data that they may learn from
   the submission of SCTs by HTTP clients.

   Auditors SHOULD provide the following URL accepting HTTPS POSTing of
   SCT feedback data:

   https://<auditor>/ct/v1/sct-gossip

   Auditors SHOULD regularly poll HTTPS servers at the well-known sct-
   feedback URL.  How to determine which domains to poll is outside the
   scope of this document but the selection MUST NOT be influenced by
   potential HTTPS clients connecting directly to the auditor.

3.1.3.  SCT feedback data format

   The data shared between HTTPS clients and servers as well as between
   HTTPS servers and CT auditors/monitors is a JSON object [RFC7159]
   with the following content:

   o  sct_feedback: An array of objects consisting of

      *  x509_chain: An array of base64-encoded X.509 certificates.  The
         first element is the end-entity certificate, the second chains
         to the first and so on.

      *  sct_data: An array of objects consisting of

         +  sct_version - Version as defined in [RFC6962] Section 3.2,
            as a number.

         +  log_id - LogID as defined in [RFC6962] Section 3.2, as a
            base64 encoded string.

         +  timestamp - The SCT timestamp, as a number.

         +  extensions - CtExtensions as defined in [RFC6962]
            Section 3.2, as a base64 encoded string.

         +  signature - The SCT signature, as a base64 encoded string.

   The 'x509_chain' element MUST contain at least the leaf certificate
   and SHOULD contain the full chain to a known root.

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3.2.  STH gossip

   The goal of gossiping about STHs is to detect logs that are
   presenting different (inconsistent) views of the log to different
   parties.  CT auditors and monitors SHOULD gossip about Signed Tree
   Heads (STHs) with as many other auditors and monitors as possible.

   [TBD gossip about inclusion proofs and consistency proofs too?]

   Which STHs to share and how often gossip should happen is regarded as
   policy and out of scope for this document.

   Auditors and monitors SHOULD provide the following URL accepting GET
   requests returning STHs:

   https://<auditor-or-monitor>/ct/v1/sth-gossip

   The data returned is a JSON object [RFC7159] with the following
   content:

   o  sth_gossip: An array of objects consisting of

      *  sth_version - Version as defined in [RFC6962] Section 3.2, as a
         number.  It's the version of the protocol to which the
         signature conforms.

      *  tree_size: The size of the tree, in entries, as a number.

      *  timestamp: The timestamp, as a number.

      *  sha256_root_hash: The Merkle Tree Hash of the tree, as a base64
         encoded string.

      *  tree_head_signature: A TreeHeadSignature as defined in
         [RFC6962] Section 3.5 for the above data, as a base64 encoded
         string.

      *  log_id - LogID as defined in [RFC6962] Section 3.2, as a base64
         encoded string.

4.  Security considerations

4.1.  Privacy considerations

   The most sensitive relationships in the CT ecosystem are the
   relationships between HTTPS clients and HTTPS servers.  Client-server
   relationships can be aggregated into a network graph with potentially

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   serious implications for correlative de-anonymisation of clients and
   relationship-mapping or clustering of servers or of clients.

4.1.1.  Privacy and SCTs

   SCTs contain information that typically links it to a particular web
   site.  Because the client-server relationship is sensitive, gossip
   between clients and servers about unrelated SCTs is risky.
   Therefore, a client with an SCT for a given server should transmit
   that information in only two channels: to a server associated with
   the SCT itself; and to a trusted CT auditor, if one exists.

4.1.2.  Privacy in SCT feedback

   HTTPS clients which allow users to clear history or cookies
   associated with an origin MUST clear stored SCTs associated with the
   origin as well.

   Auditors should treat all SCTs as sensitive data.  SCTs received
   directly from an HTTPS client are especially sensitive, since the
   auditor is a trusted by the client to not reveal their associations
   with servers.  Auditors MUST NOT share such SCTs in any way,
   including sending them to an external log, without first mixing them
   with multiple other SCTs learned through submissions from multiple
   other clients.  The details of mixing SCTs are TBD.

   There is a possible fingerprinting attack where a log issues a unique
   SCT for targeted log client(s).  A colluding log and HTTPS server
   operator could therefore be a threat to the privacy of an HTTPS
   client.  Given all the other opportunities for HTTPS servers to
   fingerprint clients - TLS session tickets, HPKP and HSTS headers,
   HTTP Cookies, etc. - this is acceptable.

   The fingerprinting attack described above could be avoided by
   requiring that logs i) MUST return the same SCT for a given cert
   chain ([RFC6962] Section 3) and ii) use a deterministic signature
   scheme when signing the SCT ([RFC6962] Section 2.1.4).

4.1.3.  Privacy in STH gossip

   Nowhere in this document is it suggested that HTTPS clients deal with
   STHs but for completeness here's a privacy analysis for STHs.  An STH
   linked to a client indicates the following about that client: - that
   the client gossips - that the client been using CT at least until the
   time that the timestamp and the tree size indicate - that the client
   is talking, possibly indirectly, to the log indicated by the tree
   hash - which software and software version is being used.

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   There is a possible fingerprinting attack where a log issues a unique
   STH for targeted log auditor(s).  This is similar to the
   fingerprinting attack described in Section 4.1.2, but it is mitigated
   by the following factors:

   o  the relationship between auditors and logs is not sensitive in the
      way that the relationship between clients and servers is.

   o  because auditors regularly exchange STHs with each other, the re-
      appearance of a targeted STH from some auditor does not imply that
      the auditor was the original one targeted by the log.

5.  IANA considerations

   TBD

6.  Contributors

   The authors would like to thank Tom Ritter and Magnus Ahltorp for
   valuable contributions.

7.  ChangeLog

7.1.  Changes between -00 and -01

   o  Add the SCT feedback mechanism: Clients send SCTs to originating
      web server which shares them with auditors.

   o  Stop assuming that clients see STHs.

   o  Don't use HTTP headers but instead .well-known URL's - avoid that
      battle.

   o  Stop referring to trans-gossip and trans-gossip-transport-https -
      too complicated.

   o  Remove all protocols but HTTPS in order to simplify - let's come
      back and add more later.

   o  Add more reasoning about privacy.

   o  Do specify data formats.

8.  Normative References

   [RFC6962]  Laurie, B., Langley, A., and E. Kasper, "Certificate
              Transparency", RFC 6962, June 2013.

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   [RFC7159]  Bray, T., "The JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) Data
              Interchange Format", RFC 7159, March 2014.

Authors' Addresses

   Linus Nordberg
   NORDUnet

   Email: linus@nordu.net

   Daniel Kahn Gillmor
   ACLU

   Email: dkg@fifthhorseman.net

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