Incorporate MSC1693

This is largely blatant copy/paste from the MSC with some formatting done to tidy it up a bit.
pull/1773/head
Travis Ralston 6 years ago
parent ffe577371d
commit 258aba5fed

@ -155,7 +155,8 @@ Iterative auth checks
state event is not allowed by the authorization rules, then the event is
ignored. If a ``(event_type, state_key)`` key that is required for checking
the authorization rules is not present in the state, then the appropriate
state event from the event's ``auth_events`` is used.
state event from the event's ``auth_events`` is used if the auth event is
not rejected.
Algorithm
+++++++++
@ -179,3 +180,43 @@ The *resolution* of a set of states is obtained as follows:
.. _`authorization rules`: ../server_server/unstable.html#authorization-rules
Rejected events
+++++++++++++++
Events that have been rejected due to failing auth based on the state at the
event (rather than based on their auth chain) are handled as usual by the
algorithm, unless otherwise specified.
Note that no events rejected due to failure to auth against their auth chain
should appear in the process, as they should not appear in state (the algorithm
only uses events that appear in either the state sets or in the auth chain of
the events in the state sets).
.. admonition:: Rationale
This helps ensure that different servers' view of state is more likely to
converge, since rejection state of an event may be different. This can happen if
a third server gives an incorrect version of the state when a server joins a
room via it (either due to being faulty or malicious). Convergence of state is a
desirable property as it ensures that all users in the room have a (mostly)
consistent view of the state of the room. If the view of the state on different
servers diverges it can lead to bifurcation of the room due to e.g. servers
disagreeing on who is in the room.
Intuitively, using rejected events feels dangerous, however:
1. Servers cannot arbitrarily make up state, since they still need to pass the
auth checks based on the event's auth chain (e.g. they can't grant themselves
power levels if they didn't have them before).
2. For a previously rejected event to pass auth there must be a set of state
that allows said event. A malicious server could therefore produce a
fork where it claims the state is that particular set of state, duplicate the
rejected event to point to that fork, and send the event. The
duplicated event would then pass the auth checks. Ignoring rejected events
would therefore not eliminate any potential attack vectors.
Rejected auth events are deliberately excluded from use in the iterative auth
checks, as auth events aren't re-authed (although non-auth events are) during
the iterative auth checks.

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