Cryptographically generated domain names

[DemiMarie]

What problem are you trying to solve?

There is no good way to connect to a device over TLS if it is not exposed to the public Internet via any mechanism.

What solutions exist today?

1. Require users to use a native mobile app.
2. Expect the user to click through certificate warnings. This promotes insecure behavior.
3. Use a cloud-based solution for accessing the device. This creates obvious and severe risks to privacy and security.
4. Use a cloud-based solution to provide the device with a public domain name and the DNS challenge to obtain a certificate. This requires trusting the operator of the cloud service, who is not held to the same standards that certification authorities are.
5. Expect the user to upload a certificate themselves. This requires knowledge most users do not have.

How would you solve it?

Embed a hash either the server’s TLS private key or the server’s root certificate in the domain name. This ensures that the domain name includes all of the information needed to verify the security of the connection. There is no reliance on third-party certificate authorities, and they should not be trusted for such domains.

Anything else?

This is the same mechanism used by onion services.

[annevk]

This seems like something that ought to be standardized by the IETF?

[DemiMarie]

Probably. I’m not really sure how to make a proposal there, though. Start with an Internet Draft?

[annevk]

Yes, I think so. https://www.ietf.org/process/new-work/ has suggestions.