Subject: [Dtls-iot] Privacy Considerations

From: Hannes Tschofenig <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2015 14:31:15 +0200

Hi all,

Stephen wrote:

(12) 24: You need to mention that simply emitting a
packet can be privacy sensitive and that (D)TLS doesn't
help if so. For example, if lights turn on when I enter
the room and those packets can be detected then seeing
any packet says someone has entered the room. Or if a
thing I carry about sends out nicely encrypted stuff
then seeing the destination IP for that might have the
privacy issue. Or if a sensor has a threshold and only
fires above/below that then seeing any packet means
we've crossed the threshold. Text that explains that and
that that's a system and/or application layer issue is
needed I think.

I added a paragraph to the privacy considerations section:

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   Note that the absence or presence of communication itself might
   reveal information to an adversary.  For example, a presence sensor
   may initiate messaging when a person enters a building.  While TLS/
   DTLS would offer confidentiality protection of the transmitted
   information it does not help to conceal all communication patterns.
   Furthermore, the IP header, which is not protected by TLS/DTLS,
   additionally reveals information about the other communication
   endpoint.  For applications where such privacy concerns exist
   additional safeguards are required, such as injecting dummy traffic
   and onion routing.  A detailed treatment of such solutions is outside
   the scope of this document and requires a system-level view.

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I hope this resolves issue#35:
http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/dice/trac/ticket/35

Ciao
Hannes