Subject: [secdir] Review of draft-levin-mmusic-xml-media-control-12

From: Larry Zhu <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 01:12:02 -0800

Hello,

I have reviewed this document as part of the security directorate's ongoing effort to review all IETF documents being processed by the IESG.  These comments were written primarily for the benefit of the security area directors.  Document editors and WG chairs should treat these comments just like any other last call comments.

Overall as an informational ID I believe the document is well written and it should be published as soon as possible.

I have the following non-blocking COMMENTS:

1. Section 2, inconsistent use of RFC2119 language, "shipping products and new products SHALL use ...", the preceding sentence seems to suggest it is a "SHOULD" not a "SHALL".

 2. Section 4, the inconsistently spelling of "in time" vs "in-time". Not being an expert in this field, it is not clear to me what the parenthesis actually adds.

 3. Section 4, (what I consider) incorrect use of RFC2119 language, "... MUST be validated by ...", I do not know what does the use of "MUST" imply here. Suggestion: it should be sufficient to drop the "MUST" keyword here, try "is validated ...".

4. Section 5, "the UAC that sent...", please expand "UAC" on first use.

5. section 7, unclear statement, "Note that this primitive is supported by all known implementations", it is not clear to me which primitive it refers to. Suggestion: quote a reference for the primitive in question.

6. section 10, overall this section could benefit from more details or references. For example, it is not clear how TLS can be applied to secure the signalling path. Also the last sentence seems to contradict with the rest of this section. The section in RFC2976 only explicitly mentions confidentiality. Suggestion: it might be sufficient to say the security considerations in RFC2976 apply here.

Best regards,

--larry

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From: "Even, Roni" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 10:04:29 +0200

Larry,

Thanks for you comments

See inline

Roni Even

________________________________

From: Larry Zhu [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2008 11:12 AM
To: Orit Levin; Even, Roni; [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked];
[email-masked]
Subject: [secdir] Review of draft-levin-mmusic-xml-media-control-12

Hello, 

I have reviewed this document as part of the security directorate's
ongoing effort to review all IETF documents being processed by the IESG.
These comments were written primarily for the benefit of the security
area directors.  Document editors and WG chairs should treat these
comments just like any other last call comments.

Overall as an informational ID I believe the document is well written
and it should be published as soon as possible.

1. Section 2, inconsistent use of RFC2119 language, "shipping products
and new products SHALL use ...", the preceding sentence seems to suggest
it is a "SHOULD" not a "SHALL".

[RE:] I agree that SHOULD would reflect more the previous sentence since
it explains that this method is only for backward compatibility.

 2. Section 4, the inconsistently spelling of "in time" vs "in-time".
Not being an expert in this field, it is not clear to me what the
parenthesis actually adds.

[RE:] I can take it out. I agree that this is not important

 3. Section 4, (what I consider) incorrect use of RFC2119 language, "...
MUST be validated by ...", I do not know what does the use of "MUST"
imply here. Suggestion: it should be sufficient to drop the "MUST"
keyword here, try "is validated ...".

[RE:] The full sentence mandates that before sending a full frame the
sender MUST validate the congestion situation and allowed bandwidth.
Note that the use case is for application reasons and not for packet
loss.

[RE:] Will do

5. section 7, unclear statement, "Note that this primitive is supported
by all known implementations", it is not clear to me which primitive it
refers to. Suggestion: quote a reference for the primitive in question.

[RE:] I think this is a redundant sentence since in previous versions of
the draft we had another primitive in the schema.

6. section 10, overall this section could benefit from more details or
references. For example, it is not clear how TLS can be applied to
secure the signalling path. 

[RE:] If SIP INFO is used to carry the fast update this opening of TLS
channel is defined in SIP.

I can change "to secure the signaling using TLS" to "to secure the
signaling using TLS as explained in [5]"

Also the last sentence seems to contradict with the rest of this
section. The section in RFC2976 only explicitly mentions
confidentiality. Suggestion: it might be sufficient to say the security
considerations in RFC2976 apply here.

[RE:] Maybe I can change "This document does not introduce new security
considerations beyond

   those covered in [3]."

To "Security considerations of [3] and [5] apply here.".

Best regards,

--larry