Last Call Review of draft-ietf-weirds-rdap-sec-09
review-ietf-weirds-rdap-sec-09-genart-lc-holmberg-2014-10-20-00

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review-ietf-weirds-rdap-sec-09-genart-lc-holmberg-2014-10-20

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I am the assigned Gen-ART reviewer for this draft. For background on Gen-ART, please see the FAQ at <http://wiki.tools.ietf.org/area/gen/trac/wiki/GenArtfaq>




 




Document:                         


draft-ietf-weirds-rdap-sec-09




 




Reviewer:                           Christer Holmberg




 




Review Date:                     


19 October

 2

014




 




IETF LC End Date:             2

4




October

 

2014




 




IETF Telechat Date:         


30 October 2014




 




Summary:                       


  I have found a number of issues. They are of editorial nature, but makes it difficult to understand the mechanism. I ask the authors to look at those, and consider if/how they can be addressed.




 




Major Issues: None




 




Minor Issues: None




 




Q1_GENERAL:




 




In the Introduction, you say that one of the goal of RDAP is to provide security services, that do not exist in WHOIS.




 




However, in section 3 you then say that RDAP doesn’t provide any of these security services, but relies on other protocols.




 




First, I think you need to re-formulate the text in the Introduction, and talk about how other protocols can be used to provide security services for RDAP.




 




Second, there is no text on why “other protocols” couldn’t be used to provide security services for WHOIS. I think you need to





say that, if you want to claim that RDAP provides better security than WHOIS.




 




Q2_GENERAL:




 




              In some places you say that additional/alternative mechanisms may be defined in the future. I think it would be good to in





the Introduction indicate that additional/alternative mechanisms can be added in the future.




 




Q3_GENERAL:




 




              You start some subsections by describing what WHOIS does/doesn’t do. I think you should first describe of




the specific security service is provided for RDAP, and then later describe e.g. why the same cannot be provided





for WHOIS




 




 




Q4_3_1_1:




 




              Section 3.1.1. says: “Federated authentication mechanisms used by RDAP are OPTIONAL.”




 




              That statement is confusing. Does it mean that everything else in the document is mandatory to support?




 




Q5_3_3:




 




              The name of section 3.3 is “Availability”. I don’t see how that is a security service, and the text mostly talks about





throttling. Would it be more appropriate to say “Request throttling” instead?




 




 




Q6_3_4:




 




              Section 3.4 says:




 




              “Web services such as RDAP commonly use HTTP Over TLS [RFC2818] to provide that protection by encrypting all




              traffic sent on the connection between client and server.”




 




              To me that sounds like something from a BCP document. I think you should say that the document defines





the usage of HTTP over TLS for providing the security service.




 




Editorial nits: None




 




 




Regards,




 




Christer