Subject: Newbie ESP Question

From: "Tore" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2003 13:40:57 -0700

All - 

            I am currently working on a proof-of-concept implementation
of a proxy-based wireless authentication and authorization protocol for
my Master's Thesis.  Anyway, my cryptographic needs appear to be met by
IPSec's ESP w/ authentication's characteristics: connectionless,
authenticity, confidentiality, and replay-resistance.  While I should in
theory be fine using ESP w/ Wi-Fi devices (which is what I will be
doing), what happens if I change the network protocol stack?  In other
words, will ESP's (using it in transport mode w/ authentication)
security characteristics hold for example if I try and use it w/
Bluetooth?  IrDA?  I ask this b/c it seems as though (plz remember I am
a newbie) ESP w/ auth in transport mode seems to provide these
characteristics independently of both IP v4 header data as well as the
type of data handed it by the "transport" layer protocol.  Thanks in
advance for any help on this issue.

Kind Regards,

Tore

---

From: "Yoav Nir" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 18:21:39 +0200

I don't know much about bluetooth or IrDa, but I believe that sticking an
ESP header under some bluetooth or IrDa header is a serious change to that
protocol.  The packet you create should still have a header that is
acceptable to the bluetooth receiver, it should be easily recognizable.  If
there are any integrity protections in bluetooth, such as checksum fields,
they have to be correct both for the encrypted packet, and for the
reconstructed packet.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]On
Behalf Of Tore
Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2003 10:41 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Newbie ESP Question

All -

            I am currently working on a proof-of-concept implementation of a
proxy-based wireless authentication and authorization protocol for my Master
's Thesis.  Anyway, my cryptographic needs appear to be met by IPSec's ESP
w/ authentication's characteristics: connectionless, authenticity,
confidentiality, and replay-resistance.  While I should in theory be fine
using ESP w/ Wi-Fi devices (which is what I will be doing), what happens if
I change the network protocol stack?  In other words, will ESP's (using it
in transport mode w/ authentication) security characteristics hold for
example if I try and use it w/ Bluetooth?  IrDA?  I ask this b/c it seems as
though (plz remember I am a newbie) ESP w/ auth in transport mode seems to
provide these characteristics independently of both IP v4 header data as
well as the type of data handed it by the "transport" layer protocol.
Thanks in advance for any help on this issue.

Kind Regards,
Tore