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Re: replay attacks



> From: Steve Kent <kent@BBN.COM>
> 	If you reread my recent message on this topic, you'll find
> that I changed my mind about sequence numbers not based on the
> rationale put forth by the swipe proponents, but as an anti-replay
> countermeasure in the context of denial of service attacks.  So, yes,
> I did change my mind, but I did not do so because I "saw the light"
> in the arguments put forth by the original proponents.
>
That's certainly odd....  To quote SwIPe:

      Packet sequence number
         This field protects against replay attacks and may also be used
         for synchronization by a stream cipher.  It is unique within
         the context of an endpoint pair (common source/destination
         address and Policy identifier).  It is incremented by one with
         every packet sent, and initialized whenever the hosts
         re-negotiate keys and/or policies.

         The hosts MUST renegotiate crypto variables before the packet
         sequence number wraps around. A host MUST NOT accept duplicate
         packets; this may be achieved by only accepting packets which
         increment the sequence number, or maintaining a small window
         of acceptable packet numbers.

Seems to me that was the _main_ rationale; perhaps you just forgot.


> ... I worry that the current definition for AH is
> rather schizophrenic in terms of what data is covered by the
> authenticity/integrity check.  It would be much cleaner if AH always
> covered a whole IP datagram.

Huh?  It _does_ always cover the whole datagram!

Bill.Simpson@um.cc.umich.edu
          Key fingerprint =  2E 07 23 03 C5 62 70 D3  59 B1 4F 5E 1D C2 C1 A2


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