ietf-nntp Re: WG Review: Simple Authentication and Security Layer (sasl)

Charles Lindsey chl at clw.cs.man.ac.uk
Mon Dec 23 08:26:24 PST 2002


In <37717585.1040386848 at majormajor.rem.cmu.edu> Lawrence Greenfield <leg+ at andrew.cmu.edu> writes:

>Defining a new SASL mechanism that does some sort of ADH will in fact 
>increase the per-connection cost, since it will be unable to utilize 
>session resumption. (Not to mention that TLS can be hardened against MITM 
>attacks by distributing the appropriate certificates.)

Indeed so. It might take a second or so at the start of a session.

>The only reason to fear TLS is if encryption of the data stream is viewed 
>as too costly. 

And that is the problem. Once a session is established, the systems may
exchange data for hours at seriously high transfer rates. The encryption
overhead would cripple it.

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
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