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Re: SOI: identity protection and DOS





> For pre-shared keys, your secure channel *must* be private.  For
> self-cert, your secure channel to verify the key does not depend on
> privacy for security.  This is the whole point of PK.
>
> This seems fairly obvious to me.  ...or am I missing something?

in addition to that: if you backup the configuration of your IPsec enabled
device and you are using shared secrets you must ensure that nowbody has a
chance to read the backup. if you are using public keys that are
authenticated using preshared information you must only make sure that the
backup is tamperproof or perhaps even tamper evidence is sufficient.

if you are keeping your private key in smartcard or HSM then even the
system administrator (who backups the system) cannot copy it. you cannot
do it with shared secrets.

in practice you must ensure the availability and confidentiality at the
same time and without spending too much. if look at the complete system
(not just the security properites of the key exchange protocol) it's much
easier to achieve this goal when you are using public keys for
authentication.

arne




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