Re: Last WG call for draft-ietf-dnsop-root-opreq-02.txt.

[Masataka Ohta <mohta@necom830.hpcl.titech.ac.jp>]

Kent;

> > Your wrong assumption is that operators always have personal relationship
> > between them.
> 
> There is no such assumption implied by my words.  In fact I made no
> claims whatsoever concerning whether operators know each other.  The
> meaning of my statement was: IF the operators know each other, THEN a
> telephone call gives better assurance. 

FYI, "IF" is a phrase to introduce an assumption.

Note also that Harald's paragraph does not have such an assumption.

> > With such an assumption, email conversation works almost as good as
> > phone one (though it takes longer to exchange several mails).
> 
> With such an assumption unathenticated email is nowhere near as
> assured -- email allows a man in the middle who can intercept and edit 
> the messages; practically speaking, telephone does not.

As I noted, it is merely an issue of timing. Man in te middle can
replace spoken MD5 numbers something else, if he can react quickly
enough.

> Surrounding that bit of crucial information with all kinds of
> personal information that is passed unobstructed won't help.  The
> only thing that would help is if you actually used some form of
> informal crypto.

That is, the assumption you introduced: "IF the operators know each
other", is not very useful.

							Masataka Ohta