Subject: [pkng] Delay tolerant key management

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:12:12 +0100

So I'll bite and try see if anyone else is interested in this one.

The DTNRG [1] has defined the bundle protocol, [2] a delay tolerant
networking protocol, and has drafts for some security mechanisms [3]
that are roughly similar to ESP.

However, DTNRG doesn't have any delay tolerant way to establish
keys between nodes, so I'd like one (or more) of those please:-)

I guess I'd like a way to transport/agree symmetric keys and a way
to transfer public keys (for signature verification/key-encryption).

The main thing that differs here from more normal networking contexts
is that round trips may take a looong time, packets (bundles) may
be routed using complex schemes (e.g. epidemic or sub-epidemic routing)
resulting in some bundles being fragmented, duplicated, going missing
or arriving seriously out of order. And of course we can't assume that
nodes have on-line or direct access to (trusted or not) third parties
for things like path construction, CRLs, OCSP or IBE key generators.

I wrote up a (now expired) I-D [4] with some initial (and very vague)
requirements a while back.

I guess if this RG were to do work on this topic, then a successful
output might also be interesting for key mgmt in other contexts where
the nodes concerned don't directly communicate.

Stephen.

[1] http://www.dtnrg.org/
[2] http://tools.ietf.org/rfc/rfc5050
[3] http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-irtf-dtnrg-bundle-security
[4] http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-farrell-dtnrg-km