Network Working Group A. McKenzie RFC #521 BBN-NET NIC #16855 30 May 1973
Restricted Use of IMP DDT
At the recent workshop on "Automated Resource Sharing on the ARPANET", considerable interest was expressed on the topic of network security. In particular, representatives of several sites felt that uncontrolled use of IMP DDT made access control mechanisms quite vulnerable to interception or tampering.* Individuals at the workshop seemed to be in general agreement that use of DDT should be much more controlled than at present. In addition, as the network continues to take on a more and more operational character, and NCC use of DDT (which must be coordinated with other DDT usage) increases** we begin to see other reasons for controlling access to the DDT mechanism.
Currently, and for the foreseeable future, it is important that the NCC be able to use DDT at any IMP at any time. It is also sometimes necessary for site personnel to be able to operate a stand alone DDT after an IMP crash. Sometimes the NCC needs to ask site personnel to operate the IMP DDT for the NCC if the network is partitioned. We have protected all DDT commands that can affect the running IMP program by requiring that sense switch 4 be turned on at the site, or a software override flag be enabled. Only the BBN IMP Teletype, the BBN TIP Teletype, and the PDP-1 can enable override. The NCC monitors these flags and reports any change in status.
In line with this approach, we will soon modify the IMP system so that any access to IMP DDT will require the same enabling actions (sense switch four turned on or override enabled from BBN) now required for core modification. This will still allow the NCC the same ability to operate DDT which it now has, and will permit site personnel to operate DDT at the request of the NCC. As is currently true, the NCC will
---------------- *Examples are easy to construct, but are intentionally omitted from this document.
**DDT is currently used by the NCC operators for core verification, for interface debugging, for loading TIP and VDH code, etc. There is discussion of using DDT in conjunction with an "auto-dialer" to examine a TIP's "view" of a modem port at the same time that the auto-dialer is examining the outside world's "view" of the port, of running "automatic" core verification, of loading Satellite IMP code, etc.
McKenzie [Page 1]
RFC 521 Restricted Use of IMP DDT May 1973
monitor the setting of sense switch four and take appropriate action if unauthorized use is observed. We feel that this change will be sufficient to discourage "hackers", although it is obviously insufficient to protect a node against a determined and malicious attack.
It should be noted that it is not our current intent to prohibit occasional use of DDT for communication between sites via "DDT" messages. Currently, there are two DDT commands, C and L, which set the single-character message and multi-character message headers respectively. We will continue this facility, either by always permitting the use of these DDT commands, or by implementing some new code outside DDT for this purpose.
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