Special Seminar - Nick Sullivan

Tuesday, April 2, 2019 11:30 am - 11:30 am EDT (GMT -04:00)

Title: IETF encryption standards post-TLS 1.3

Speaker: Nick Sullivan
Affiliation: Cloudflare
Room: MC 5501

Abstract:

TLS is one of the most important security protocols online. It’s most famously used in web browsing, providing the S in HTTPS. After five years of discussions, debates, deployments, compromises, and ultimately industry consensus, in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standardized a new version of the protocol, TLS 1.3, published as RFC 8446 in late 2018. The improvements TLS 1.3 brings over previous versions are substantial, but it left several questions unanswered.

With TLS 1.3 complete, the IETF’s TLS working group has pointed its attention to new work. In this talk, I’ll explore how IETF standards are created, how to participate in the process, what new standards are currently under discussion, and how they relate to the future of security online. I’ll be exploring new proposals including Encrypted SNI, Delegated Credentials, Exported Authenticators, OPAQUE, and semi-static DH, and exploring some open research angles.

About the speaker:

Nick Sullivan is Head of Cryptography at Cloudflare, where he is responsible for overseeing all cryptographic aspects of Cloudflare's products. He is passionate about improving security and privacy online through cutting-edge research and the development of open standards. Prior to joining Cloudflare, he helped build and secure Apple’s multi-billion dollar iTunes store. He has a Master of Science in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Calgary and a BMath from the University of Waterloo in Pure Math and C&O.