[Internet]Re: JEP Review Request: TLS Certificate Compression

Mon Feb 28 20:33:16 UTC 2022

Hi,

It may be better to have more detail here, rather than refer you to the draft JEP.  The first question maybe, if TLS Certificate Compression is something we want it in OpenJDK?

The TLS Certificate Compression standard was described in RFC 8879, and has been enabled in browser Chrome and Safari. But, what’s TLS Certificate Compression and what’s the benefits of this feature?

For TLS connections, a client must authenticate the identity of the server. This typically involves verification that the identity of the server is included in a certificate and that the certificate is issued by a trusted entity.

Where servers provide certificates for authentication, the size of the certificate chain can consume a large number of bytes. Controlling the size of certificate chains is critical to performance and security in QUIC. TLS certificate compression has the potential to ameliorate the attacks/problems by reducing the size of the handshakes to a size compatible with the security restriction.  The TLS Certificate Compression feature is an essential part for QUIC-TLS protocols.

For more details, please refer to section 4.4 in RFC 9001 (Using TLS to Secure QUIC):
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Note: Where servers provide certificates for authentication, the size of the certificate chain can consume a large number of bytes. Controlling the size of certificate chains is critical to performance in QUIC as servers are limited to sending 3 bytes for every byte received prior to validating the client address; see Section 8.1 of [QUIC-TRANSPORT]. The size of a certificate chain can be managed by limiting the number of names or extensions; using keys with small public key representations, like ECDSA; or by using certificate compression [COMPRESS].¶
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and a more detailed description in the blog “Does the QUIC handshake require compression to be fast?”(https://www.fastly.com/blog/quic-handshake-tls-compression-certificates-extension-study).  I just copy part of the conclusion section of the bog here for your quick reference.
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First, the TLS certificate compression extension has a very large impact on QUIC performance. Even though the extension is new and being introduced fairly late in the process when compared to overall QUIC deployment schedules, it seems quite important for both clients and servers to implement the new extension so that the QUIC handshake can live up to its billing. Without some help, 40% of QUIC full handshakes would be no better than TCP, but compression can repair most of that issue. I have heard of other non-standardized approaches to reducing the size of the certificate chain, and they seem reasonable, but this is a problem worth addressing immediately with the existing compression extension.

...

Lastly, data from the real world again proves to be more insightful than intuition and is invaluable in making protocol design and implementation decisions. When I started this work I expected the impact of compression to be positive but marginally focused on a few edge cases. The data shows this optimization lands right on the sweet spot that ties configurations and the QUIC specification together and impacts a large portion of QUIC handshakes. My thanks to the authors of the compression extension.
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Besides, reducing the amount of information exchanged during a TLS handshake to a minimum helps to improve performance in environments, for example Internet of Things, where devices are connected to a network with a low bandwidth and lossy radio technology.

This feature is a part to improve the performance of TLS connections, and it is also a part of the path towards QUIC standards.

Chrome support TLS certificate compression with Brotil compression algorithm, and Safari support TLS certificate compression with Zlib compression algorithm.

In a summary, JDK could benefits from support RFC 8879 in the following areas:

    Performance - Reduce latency and improve performance of TLS and QUIC connections by support the TLS certificate compression standard in JDK.
    Security - Mitigate the impact of amplification attacks threat by reducing the size of the TLS handshakes with compressed certificates.

Please feel free to share you comments, if it is something we want in OpenJDK?

Thanks,
Xuelei

On Feb 28, 2022, at 10:57 AM, xueleifan(XueleiFan) <xueleifan at tencent.com<mailto:xueleifan at tencent.com>> wrote:

Hi,

Could I have this JEP reviewed?  One or more qualified Committers review is required to move it forward.

Here is the PR if you want to have a further look at the implementation and test:
    https://github.com/openjdk/jdk/pull/7599

Thanks,
Xuelei

On Feb 15, 2022, at 9:30 PM, xueleifan(XueleiFan) <xueleifan at tencent.com<mailto:xueleifan at tencent.com>> wrote:

Hi all,

The JDK Enhancement Proposal, TLS Certificate Compression, has been opened for community review.  Detailed, please refer to the draft:

    https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8281710

Feel free to make comment and send your feedback to the alias.  I may submit this JEP in the beginning of next week if I hear no objections by the end of this week.

Thanks,
Xuelei

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