Subject: [Ntp] Last Call: <draft-ietf-ntp-mac-05.txt> (Message Authentication Code for the Network Time Protocol) to Proposed Standard

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 05 Oct 2018 14:53:27 -0700

The IESG has received a request from the Network Time Protocol WG (ntp) to
consider the following document: - 'Message Authentication Code for the
Network Time Protocol'
  <draft-ietf-ntp-mac-05.txt> as Proposed Standard

The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits final
comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the
[email-masked] mailing lists by 2018-10-19. Exceptionally, comments may be
sent to [email-masked] instead. In either case, please retain the beginning of
the Subject line to allow automated sorting.

Abstract

   RFC 5905 [RFC5905] states that Network Time Protocol (NTP) packets
   should be authenticated by appending a 128-bit key to the NTP data,
   and hashing the result with MD5 to obtain a 128-bit tag.  This
   document deprecates MD5-based authentication, which is considered to
   be too weak, and recommends the use of AES-CMAC [RFC4493] as a
   replacement.

The file can be obtained via
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-ntp-mac/

IESG discussion can be tracked via
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-ntp-mac/ballot/

No IPR declarations have been submitted directly on this I-D.

---

From: Tal Mizrahi <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2018 20:33:30 +0300

Hi,

I believe the Security Considerations section should start with a general
comment about the security considerations of time synch protocols,
something along the lines of:
"The security considerations of time protocols in general are discussed in
[RFC7384], and specifically the security considerations of NTP are
discussed in [RFC5905]."

Otherwise, I believe the draft is ready for publication.

Cheers,
Tal Mizrahi.