[NNTP] Re: Comments on draft-ietf-nntp-tls-nntp-05.txt

[EKR]

Andrew Gierth <andrew at erlenstar.demon.co.uk> writes:

>>>>>> "EKR" == EKR  <ekr at networkresonance.com> writes:
>
>  > Russ Allbery <rra at stanford.edu> wrote:
>  >> EKR <ekr at networkresonance.com> writes:
>  >> > Ken Murchison <ken at oceana.com> wrote:
>  >> >> Coming from the email world, I tried to argue this same point,
>  >> >> but was told that given the sheer volume of NNTP traffic, using
>  >> >> TLS for an entire session is unrealistic in the real world.
>  >> >> Feel free to search the list archives or renew this discussion.
>  >> 
>  >> > Yes, I recall repeated vigorous assertions to this effect,
>  >> > combined with fairly small amounts of data.
>  >> 
>  >> I believe Andrew Gierth had concrete data in this area.
>
>  EKR> I'd be interested in seeing it. 
>
> Well, nondisclosure limits how much I can say, but it's unquestionably
> true that (a) traffic levels of many gigabits are the norm rather than
> the exception in the commercial Usenet provider industry (which is a
> very significant user of authenticated NNTP connections, and more
> importantly also has a major effect on client development) and (b) the
> CPU cost of encrypting all that, purely to protect the password, is
> not something that can simply be absorbed.  

Yeah, this falls more into the category of assertion than data. 

-Ekr