Charter Update for MSEC

[Russ Housley <housley@vigilsec.com>]

The MSEC WG has asked for a minor update to their charter.  The biggest 
changes are in the milestones, but there are also some changes in the 
charter itself.

Anyone have concerns?

Russ

= = = = = = = = =

MSEC CHARTER

The purpose of the MSEC WG is to standardize protocols for securing group 
communication over internets, and in particular over the global Internet. 
Initial efforts will focus on scalable solutions for groups with a single 
source and a very large number of recipients. Additional emphasis will be 
put on groups where the data is transmitted via IP-layer multicast routing 
protocols (with or without guaranteed reliability). The developed standard 
will assume that each group has a single trusted entity (the Group 
Controller) that sets the security policy and controls the group 
membership. The standard will strive to provide at least the following 
basic security guarantees:

+ Only legitimate group members will have access to current group 
communication. This includes groups with highly dynamic membership.

+ Legitimate group members will be able to authenticate the source and 
contents of the group communication. This includes cases where group 
members do not trust each other.

An additional goal of the standard will be to protect against 
denial-of-service attacks, whenever possible.

Due to the large number of one-to-many multicast applications and the 
sometimes conflicting requirements these applications exhibit, it is 
believed that a single protocol will be unable to meet the requirements of 
all applications. Therefore, the WG will first specify a general Reference 
Framework that includes a number of functional building blocks. Each such 
building block will be instantiated by one or more protocols that will be 
interchangable. The Reference Framework will not only describe one-to-many 
multicast, but also many-to-many multicast.

In addition, as a secondary goal the MSEC WG will also focus on distributed 
architectures for group key management and group policy management, where 
for scalability purposes multiple trusted entities (such as Key 
Distributors) are deployed in a distributed fashion. For this purpose, the 
Reference Framework will not only describe one-to-many multicast, but also 
many-to-many multicast.

MSEC will generate at least the following documents, which could be 
considered as base documents:

1. An RFC describing the security requirements of multicast security and an 
RFC describing the MSEC Architecture.

2. An RFC describing the Group Key Management Architecture and an RFC 
describing Group Policy Management Architecture in MSEC.

3. Several RFCs describing specifications for protocols that implement 
source authentication, group key management and group policy management.

As multicast security covers a broad range of issues, and therefore touches 
other Working Groups in the IETF, the MSEC WG will work closely with other 
security-related Working Groups (e.g. IPsec, IPSP), as well as other 
Working Groups which maybe considered a "consumer" of the technologies 
produced in the MSEC WG (e.g. AVT, MMUSIC) or which may have a multicast 
focus (e.g. PIM, RMT, IDRM, MAGMA).

With this in mind, the MSEC WG is open to receiving new work items, 
whenever it is considered appropriate to be homed in the MSEC WG.  Such 
drafts will be matured in conjunction with the MSEC base documents.


GOALS AND MILESTONES

DONE      Working Group Last Call on GDOI Protocol.

DONE      Working Group Last Call on MIKEY Protocol.

Sep 03    WG Last Call on Group Key Management Architecture draft.

Sep 03    WG Last Call on MSEC Architecture draft.

Sep 03    WG Last Call on DHHMAC for MIKEY.

Sep 03    WG Last Call on Data Security Architecture draft

Dec 03    WG Last Call on Security Requirements draft.

Mar 04    WG Last Call on Group Security Policy Architecture draft

Mar 04    WG Last Call on MESP (Multicast ESP) draft.

Mar 04    WG Last call on MESP-TESLA draft.

Mar 04    WG Last Call on GSAKMP-Light protocol.

Jul 04    WG re-charter for other work items (or disband).