summary refs log tree commit diff
path: root/docs
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to 'docs')
-rw-r--r--docs/human-id-rules.rst71
1 files changed, 71 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/docs/human-id-rules.rst b/docs/human-id-rules.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..36987ddd0d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/human-id-rules.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,71 @@
+This document outlines the format for human-readable IDs within matrix.
+
+Overview
+--------
+UTF-8 is quickly becoming the standard character encoding set on the web. As
+such, Matrix requires that all strings MUST be encoded as UTF-8. However,
+using Unicode as the character set for human-readable IDs is troublesome. There
+are many different characters which appear identical to each other, but would
+identify different users. In addition, there are non-printable characters which
+cannot be rendered the the end-user. This opens up a security vulnerability with
+phishing/spoofing of IDs, commonly known as a homograph attack.
+
+Web browers encountered this problem when International Domain Names were
+introduced. A variety of checks were put in place in order to protect users. If
+an address failed the check, the raw punycode would be displayed to disambiguate
+the address. Similar checks are performed by home servers in Matrix, which will
+then warn the client about the potentially misleading ID. However, Matrix does
+not use punycode, and so does not show raw punycode on a failed check. Instead,
+home servers must outright reject these misleading IDs.
+
+Types of human-readable IDs
+---------------------------
+There are two main human-readable IDs in question:
+
+ - Room aliases
+ - User IDs
+ 
+Room aliases look like ``#localpart:domain``. These aliases point to opaque
+non human-readable room IDs. These pointers can change, so there is already an
+issue present with the same ID pointing to a different destination at a later
+date.
+
+User IDs look like ``@localpart:domain``. These represent actual end-users, and
+unlike room aliases, there is no layer of indirection. This presents a much
+greater concern with homograph attacks. 
+
+Checks
+------
+- Similar to web browsers.
+- blacklisted chars (e.g. non-printable characters)
+- mix of language sets from 'preferred' language not allowed. 
+- Language sets from CLDR dataset.
+- Treated in segments (localpart, domain)
+
+Rejecting
+---------
+- Home servers MUST reject room aliases which do not pass the check, both on 
+  GETs and PUTs.
+- Home servers MUST reject user ID localparts which do not pass the check, both
+  on creation and on events.
+- Any home server whose domain does not pass this check, MUST use their punycode
+  domain name instead of the IDN, to prevent other home servers rejecting you.
+- Error code is M_FAILED_HOMOGRAPH_CHECK.
+- Error message MAY go into further information about which characters were
+  rejected and why.
+  
+Other considerations
+--------------------
+- Basic security: Informational key on the event attached by HS to say "unsafe 
+  ID". Problem: clients can just ignore it, and since it will appear only very
+  rarely, easy to forget when implementing clients.
+- Moderate security: Requires client handshake. Forces clients to implement
+  a check, else they cannot communicate with the misleading ID. However, this is
+  extra overhead in both client implementations and round-trips.
+- High security: Outright rejection of the ID at the point of creation / 
+  receiving event. Point of creation rejection is preferable to avoid the ID
+  entering the system in the first place. However, malicious HSes can just allow
+  the ID. Hence, other home servers must reject them if they see them in events.
+  Client never sees the problem ID, provided the HS is correctly implemented.
+- High security decided; client doesn't need to worry about it, no additional
+  protocol complexity aside from rejection of an event.
\ No newline at end of file