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IETF RFC 8065
Last modified on Wednesday, February 22nd, 2017
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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) D. Thaler
Request for Comments: 8065 Microsoft
Category: Informational February 2017
ISSN: 2070-1721
Privacy Considerations for IPv6 Adaptation-Layer Mechanisms
 Abstract
This document discusses how a number of privacy threats apply to
technologies designed for IPv6 over various link-layer protocols, and
it provides advice to protocol designers on how to address such
threats in adaptation-layer specifications for IPv6 over such links.
Status of This Memo
This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
published for informational purposes.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Not all documents
approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 7841.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 8065.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2017 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
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RFC 8065 IPv6-over-foo Privacy Considerations February 2017
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Amount of Entropy Needed in Global Addresses . . . . . . . . 3
3. Potential Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.1. IEEE-Identifier-Based Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2. Short Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1. Introduction
RFC 6973 [RFC 6973] discusses privacy considerations for Internet
protocols, and Section 5.2 of that document covers a number of
privacy-specific threats. In the context of IPv6 addresses, Section
3 of [RFC 7721] provides further elaboration on the applicability of
the privacy threats.
When interface identifiers (IIDs) are generated without sufficient
entropy compared to the link lifetime, devices and users can become
vulnerable to the various threats discussed there, including:
o Correlation of activities over time, if the same identifier is
used for traffic over period of time
o Location tracking, if the same interface identifier is used with
different prefixes as a device moves between different networks
o Device-specific vulnerability exploitation, if the identifier
helps identify a vendor or version or protocol and hence suggests
what types of attacks to try
o Address scanning, which enables all of the above attacks by
off-link attackers. (On some Non-Broadcast Multi-Access (NBMA)
links where all nodes aren't already privy to all on-link
addresses, address scans might also be done by on-link attackers;
however, in most cases, address scans are not an interesting
threat from on-link attackers and thus address scans generally
apply only to routable addresses.)
For example, for links that may last for years, "enough" bits of
entropy means at least 46 or so bits (see Section 2 for why) in a
routable address; ideally all 64 bits of the IID should be used,
although historically some bits have been excluded for reasons
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RFC 8065 IPv6-over-foo Privacy Considerations February 2017
discussed in [RFC 7421]. Link-local addresses can also be susceptible
to the same privacy threats from off-link attackers, since experience
shows they are often leaked by upper-layer protocols such as SMTP,
SIP, or DNS.
For these reasons, [RFC 8064] recommends using an address generation
scheme in [RFC 7217], rather than addresses generated from a fixed
link-layer address.
Furthermore, to mitigate the threat of correlation of activities over
time on long-lived links, [RFC 4941] specifies the notion of a
"temporary" address to be used for transport sessions (typically
locally initiated outbound traffic to the Internet) that should not
be linkable to a more permanent identifier such as a DNS name, user
name, or fixed link-layer address. Indeed, the default address
selection rules [RFC 6724] now prefer temporary addresses by default
for outgoing connections. If a device needs to simultaneously
support unlinkable traffic as well as traffic that is linkable to
such a stable identifier, supporting simultaneous use of multiple
addresses per device is necessary.
2. Amount of Entropy Needed in Global Addresses
In terms of privacy threats discussed in [RFC 7721], the one with the
need for the most entropy is address scans of routable addresses. To
mitigate address scans, one needs enough entropy to make the
probability of a successful address probe be negligible. Typically,
this is measured in the length of time it would take to have a 50%
probability of getting at least one hit. Address scans often rely on
sending a packet such as a TCP SYN or ICMP Echo Request, then
determining whether the reply is a) an ICMP unreachable error (if no
host exists with that address), b) a TCP response or ICMP Echo Reply
(if a host exists), or c) none of those, in which case nothing is
known for certain.
Many privacy-sensitive devices support a "stealth mode" as discussed
in Section 5 of [RFC 7288] or are behind a network firewall that will
drop unsolicited inbound traffic (e.g., TCP SYNs, ICMP Echo Requests,
etc.) and thus no TCP RST or ICMP Echo Reply will be sent. In such
cases, and when the device does not listen on a well-known TCP or UDP
port known to the scanner, the effectiveness of an address scan is
limited by the ability to get ICMP unreachable errors, since the
attacker can only infer the presence of a host based on the absence
of an ICMP unreachable error.
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RFC 8065 IPv6-over-foo Privacy Considerations February 2017
Generation of ICMP unreachable errors is typically rate limited to 2
per second (the default in routers such as Cisco routers running IOS
12.0 or later). Such a rate results in taking about a year to
completely scan 26 bits of space.
The actual math is as follows. Let 2^N be the number of devices on
the subnet. Let 2^M be the size of the space to scan (i.e., M bits
of entropy). Let S be the number of scan attempts. The formula for
a 50% chance of getting at least one hit in S attempts is:
P(at least one success) = 1 - (1 - 2^N/2^M)^S = 1/2.
Assuming 2^M >> S, this simplifies to:
S * 2^N/2^M = 1/2, giving S = 2^(M-N-1), or M = N + 1 + log_2(S).
Using a scan rate of 2 per second, this results in the following rule
of thumb:
Bits of entropy needed =
log_2(# devices per link) + log_2(seconds of link lifetime) + 2
For example, for a network with at most 2^16 devices on the same
long-lived link, where the average lifetime of a link is 8 years
(2^28 seconds) or less, this results in a need for at least 46 bits
of entropy (16+28+2) so that an address scan would need to be
sustained for longer than the lifetime of the link to have a 50%
chance of getting a hit.
Although 46 bits of entropy may be enough to provide privacy in such
cases, 59 or more bits of entropy would be needed if addresses are
used to provide security against attacks such as spoofing, as CGAs
[RFC 3972] and HBAs [RFC 5535] do, since attacks are not limited by
ICMP rate limiting but by the processing power of the attacker. See
those RFCs for more discussion.
If, on the other hand, the devices being scanned for respond to
unsolicited inbound packets, then the address scan is not limited by
the ICMP unreachable rate limit in routers, since an adversary can
determine the presence of a host without them. In such cases, more
bits of entropy would be needed to provide the same level of
protection.
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RFC 8065 IPv6-over-foo Privacy Considerations February 2017
3. Potential Approaches
The table below shows the number of bits of entropy currently
available in various technologies:
+---------------+--------------------------+--------------------+
| Technology | Reference | Bits of Entropy |
+---------------+--------------------------+--------------------+
| 802.15.4 | [RFC 4944] | 16+ or any EUI-64 |
| Bluetooth LE | [RFC 7668] | 48 |
| DECT ULE | [DECT-ULE] | 40 or any EUI-48 |
| MS/TP | [IPv6-over-MSTP] | 7 or 64 |
| ITU-T G.9959 | [RFC 7428] | 8 |
| NFC | [IPv6-over-NFC] | 5 |
+---------------+--------------------------+--------------------+
Such technologies generally support either IEEE identifiers or so
called "Short Addresses", or both, as link-layer addresses. We
discuss each in turn.
3.1. IEEE-Identifier-Based Addresses
Some technologies allow the use of IEEE EUI-48 or EUI-64 identifiers
or allow the use of an arbitrary 64-bit identifier. Using such an
identifier to construct IPv6 addresses makes it easy to use the
normal LOWPAN_IPHC encoding [RFC 6282] with stateless compression,
which allows such IPv6 addresses to be fully elided in common cases.
Global addresses with interface identifiers formed from IEEE
identifiers can have insufficient entropy to mitigate address scans
unless the IEEE identifier itself has sufficient entropy and enough
bits of entropy are carried over into the IPv6 address to
sufficiently mitigate the threats. Privacy threats other than
"Correlation over time" can be mitigated using per-network randomized
link-layer addresses with enough entropy compared to the link
lifetime. A number of such proposals can be found at
<https://mentor.ieee.org/privecsg/documents>, and Section 10.8 of
[BTCorev4.1] specifies one for Bluetooth. Using routable IPv6
addresses derived from such link-layer addresses would be roughly
equivalent to those specified in [RFC 7217].
Correlation over time (for all addresses, not just routable
addresses) can be mitigated if the link-layer address itself changes
often enough, such as each time the link is established, if the link
lifetime is short. For further discussion, see [RANDOM-ADDR].
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RFC 8065 IPv6-over-foo Privacy Considerations February 2017
Another potential concern is that of efficiency, such as avoiding
Duplicate Address Detection (DAD) altogether when IPv6 addresses are
based on IEEE identifiers. Appendix A of [RFC 4429] provides an
analysis of address-collision probability based on the number of bits
of entropy. A simple web search on "duplicate MAC addresses" will
show that collisions do happen with MAC addresses; thus, based on the
analysis in [RFC 4429], using sufficient bits of entropy in random
addresses can provide greater protection against collision than using
MAC addresses.
3.2. Short Addresses
A routable IPv6 address with an interface identifier formed from the
combination of a "Short Address" and a set of well-known constant
bits (such as padding with 0's) lacks sufficient entropy to mitigate
address scanning unless the link lifetime is extremely short.
Furthermore, an adversary could also use statistical methods to
determine the size of the L2 address space and thereby make some
inference regarding the underlying technology on a given link, and
target further attacks accordingly.
When Short Addresses are desired on links that are not guaranteed to
have a short enough lifetime, the mechanism for constructing an IPv6
interface identifier from a Short Address could be designed to
sufficiently mitigate the problem. For example, if all nodes on a
given L2 network have a shared secret (such as the key needed to get
on the layer-2 network), the 64-bit IID might be generated using a
one-way hash that includes (at least) the shared secret together with
the Short Address. The use of such a hash would result in the IIDs
being spread out among the full range of IID address space, thus
mitigating address scans while still allowing full stateless
compression/elision.
For long-lived links, "temporary" addresses might even be generated
in the same way by (for example) also including in the hash the
Version Number from the Authoritative Border Router Option (Section
4.3 of [RFC 6775]), if any. This would allow changing temporary
addresses whenever the Version Number is changed, even if the set of
prefix or context information is unchanged.
In summary, any specification using Short Addresses should carefully
construct an IID generation mechanism so as to provide sufficient
entropy compared to the link lifetime.
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RFC 8065 IPv6-over-foo Privacy Considerations February 2017
4. Recommendations
The following are recommended for adaptation-layer specifications:
o Security (privacy) sections should say how address scans are
mitigated. An address scan might be mitigated by having a link
always be short-lived, by having a large number of bits of entropy
in routable addresses, or by some combination thereof. Thus, a
specification should explain what the maximum lifetime of a link
is in practice and show how the number of bits of entropy is
sufficient given that lifetime.
o Technologies should define a way to include sufficient bits of
entropy in the IPv6 interface identifier, based on the maximum
link lifetime. Specifying that randomized link-layer addresses
can be used is one easy way to do so, for technologies that
support such identifiers.
o Specifications should not simply construct an IPv6 interface
identifier by padding a Short Address with a set of other well-
known constant bits, unless the link lifetime is guaranteed to be
extremely short or the Short Address is allocated by the network
(rather than being constant in the node). This also applies to
link-local addresses if the same Short Address is used independent
of network and is unique enough to allow location tracking.
o Specifications should make sure that an IPv6 address can change
over long periods of time. For example, the interface identifier
might change each time a device connects to the network (if
connections are short) or might change each day (if connections
can be long). This is necessary to mitigate correlation over
time.
o If a device can roam between networks and more than a few bits of
entropy exist in the IPv6 interface identifier, then make sure
that the interface identifier can vary per network as the device
roams. This is necessary to mitigate location tracking.
5. Security Considerations
This entire document is about security considerations and how to
specify possible mitigations.
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RFC 8065 IPv6-over-foo Privacy Considerations February 2017
6. Informative References
[BTCorev4.1]
Bluetooth, "Specification of the Bluetooth System",
Covered Core Package version: 4.1, December 2013,
<https://www.bluetooth.org/DocMan/handlers/
DownloadDoc.ashx?doc_id=282159>.
[DECT-ULE] Mariager, P., Petersen, J., Ed., Shelby, Z., Van de Logt,
M., and D. Barthel, "Transmission of IPv6 Packets over
DECT Ultra Low Energy", draft-ietf-6lo-dect-ule-09,
Work in Progress, December 2016.
[IPv6-over-MSTP]
Lynn, K., Ed., Martocci, J., Neilson, C., and S.
Donaldson, "Transmission of IPv6 over MS/TP Networks",
draft-ietf-6lo-6lobac-06, Work in Progress, October 2016.
[IPv6-over-NFC]
Choi, Y-H., Hong, Y-G., Youn, J-S., Kim, D-K., and J-H.
Choi, "Transmission of IPv6 Packets over Near Field
Communication", draft-ietf-6lo-nfc-05, Work in Progress,
October 2016.
[RANDOM-ADDR]
Huitema, C., "Implications of Randomized Link Layers
Addresses for IPv6 Address Assignment",
draft-huitema-6man-random-addresses-03, Work in Progress,
March 2016.
[RFC 3972] Aura, T., "Cryptographically Generated Addresses (CGA)",
RFC 3972, DOI 10.17487/RFC 3972, March 2005,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 3972>.
[RFC 4429] Moore, N., "Optimistic Duplicate Address Detection (DAD)
for IPv6", RFC 4429, DOI 10.17487/RFC 4429, April 2006,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 4429>.
[RFC 4941] Narten, T., Draves, R., and S. Krishnan, "Privacy
Extensions for Stateless Address Autoconfiguration in
IPv6", RFC 4941, DOI 10.17487/RFC 4941, September 2007,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 4941>.
[RFC 4944] Montenegro, G., Kushalnagar, N., Hui, J., and D. Culler,
"Transmission of IPv6 Packets over IEEE 802.15.4
Networks", RFC 4944, DOI 10.17487/RFC 4944, September 2007,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 4944>.
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RFC 8065 IPv6-over-foo Privacy Considerations February 2017
[RFC 5535] Bagnulo, M., "Hash-Based Addresses (HBA)", RFC 5535,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 5535, June 2009,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 5535>.
[RFC 6282] Hui, J., Ed., and P. Thubert, "Compression Format for IPv6
Datagrams over IEEE 802.15.4-Based Networks", RFC 6282,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 6282, September 2011,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 6282>.
[RFC 6724] Thaler, D., Ed., Draves, R., Matsumoto, A., and T. Chown,
"Default Address Selection for Internet Protocol Version 6
(IPv6)", RFC 6724, DOI 10.17487/RFC 6724, September 2012,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 6724>.
[RFC 6775] Shelby, Z., Ed., Chakrabarti, S., Nordmark, E., and C.
Bormann, "Neighbor Discovery Optimization for IPv6 over
Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPANs)",
RFC 6775, DOI 10.17487/RFC 6775, November 2012,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 6775>.
[RFC 6973] Cooper, A., Tschofenig, H., Aboba, B., Peterson, J.,
Morris, J., Hansen, M., and R. Smith, "Privacy
Considerations for Internet Protocols", RFC 6973,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 6973, July 2013,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 6973>.
[RFC 7217] Gont, F., "A Method for Generating Semantically Opaque
Interface Identifiers with IPv6 Stateless Address
Autoconfiguration (SLAAC)", RFC 7217,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 7217, April 2014,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 7217>.
[RFC 7288] Thaler, D., "Reflections on Host Firewalls", RFC 7288,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 7288, June 2014,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 7288>.
[RFC 7421] Carpenter, B., Ed., Chown, T., Gont, F., Jiang, S.,
Petrescu, A., and A. Yourtchenko, "Analysis of the 64-bit
Boundary in IPv6 Addressing", RFC 7421,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 7421, January 2015,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 7421>.
[RFC 7428] Brandt, A. and J. Buron, "Transmission of IPv6 Packets
over ITU-T G.9959 Networks", RFC 7428,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 7428, February 2015,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 7428>.
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RFC 8065 IPv6-over-foo Privacy Considerations February 2017
[RFC 7668] Nieminen, J., Savolainen, T., Isomaki, M., Patil, B.,
Shelby, Z., and C. Gomez, "IPv6 over BLUETOOTH(R) Low
Energy", RFC 7668, DOI 10.17487/RFC 7668, October 2015,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 7668>.
[RFC 7721] Cooper, A., Gont, F., and D. Thaler, "Security and Privacy
Considerations for IPv6 Address Generation Mechanisms",
RFC 7721, DOI 10.17487/RFC 7721, March 2016,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 7721>.
[RFC 8064] Gont, F., Cooper, A., Thaler, D., and W. Liu,
"Recommendation on Stable IPv6 Interface Identifiers",
RFC 8064, February 2017,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 8064>.
Author's Address
Dave Thaler
Microsoft
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
United States of America
Email: dthaler@microsoft.com
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RFC TOTAL SIZE: 22718 bytes
PUBLICATION DATE: Wednesday, February 22nd, 2017
LEGAL RIGHTS: The IETF Trust (see BCP 78)
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