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A questionable method for mitigating namespace collisions
draft-wkumari-dnsop-defense-collision-mitigate-00

The information below is for an old version of the document.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 7304.
Author Warren "Ace" Kumari
Last updated 2013-06-16
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IETF conflict review conflict-review-wkumari-dnsop-defense-collision-mitigate, conflict-review-wkumari-dnsop-defense-collision-mitigate, conflict-review-wkumari-dnsop-defense-collision-mitigate, conflict-review-wkumari-dnsop-defense-collision-mitigate, conflict-review-wkumari-dnsop-defense-collision-mitigate, conflict-review-wkumari-dnsop-defense-collision-mitigate
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IESG IESG state Became RFC 7304 (Informational)
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draft-wkumari-dnsop-defense-collision-mitigate-00
dnsop                                                          W. Kumari
Internet-Draft                                                    Google
Intended status: Informational                             June 16, 2013
Expires: December 18, 2013

       A questionable method for mitigating namespace collisions
           draft-wkumari-dnsop-defense-collision-mitigate-00

Abstract

   This document outlines a method to mitigate the effect of collisions
   in the DNS namespace by providing a means for end users to
   disambiguate the conflict.

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-
   Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   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 December 18, 2013.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2013 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
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction / Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Mitigation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   3.  Implementation / Disclaimers  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   5.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   6.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   7.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   Appendix A.  Changes / Author Notes.  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4

1.  Introduction / Background

   Collisions in the DNS occur in multiple ways; one common case is that
   an organization has used an sub-domain (foo) of their primary domain
   (example.com) for corporate infrastructure, and then the string "foo"
   is delegated as a TLD.  When a employee of the organization enters
   'www.foo', are they trying to reach a machine in the internal
   namespace (www.foo.example.com) or the hostname 'www' in the 'foo'
   TLD?

   This document describes a means of disambiguating these, and similar
   cases.

2.  Mitigation

   The mitigation described in this document involves presenting the
   multiple options to the user, and allowing them to indicate which of
   the names is the one they were trying to reach, and then connecting
   to that.

   This could be accomplished in a number of ways, including:

      Intercepting the resolution requests from the application in a
      "shim" type library

      Replacing the resolver library entirely

      Integrating this type of mitigation into applications (some web
      browsers already do something similar to this)

      Running a resolver locally on the workstation / host that return
      the address of a proxy.

   The mitigation would lookup the name in multiple namespaces, and if a
   conflict is detected, it would then provide a means for the user to
   choose which one of the colliding names they wish to connect to, and

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   return the unambiguated answer to the application.  An additional
   feature could be for the described mitigation to cache the user's
   choice, and / or provide a means to set priorities.

   There are a nuamber of issues with this solution, including but not
   limited to:

   o  There may not be a human avaialble to disambiguate the answer
      (unattended machines, ATMs, etc).

   o  The human / user may have no idea which is the correct choice.

   o  The additional latency introduced may cause the originating
      application to time out.

   o  The user experiance may be horrid.

3.  Implementation / Disclaimers

   This document does not reference an implementation as it is unclear
   if the idea is worth implementing - this document exists primarily so
   that searches for prior-art will find this, and to prevent nefarious
   deeds.  The idea itself may be / probably is horrendous, but it
   anyone wants to give it a whirl, everyone should be able to give it a
   whirl.

   This is a very slight mitigation.  It should not be viewed as a
   solution to the "namespace collision" issue.  The author is not
   planning on revising this draft.

4.  IANA Considerations

   This document contains no IANA considerations.

5.  Security Considerations

   Yes, there probably are some.  Don't do this then.

6.  Acknowledgements

   The authors wish to thank some folk, including Tarquin F'tang-F'tang-
   Ole-Biscuitbarrel.

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7.  References

Appendix A.  Changes / Author Notes.

   [RFC Editor: Please remove this section before publication.]

   From -00 to -01.

   o  Nothing changed in the template!

Author's Address

   Warren Kumari
   Google
   1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
   Mountain View, CA  94043
   US

   Email: warren@kumari.net

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