[ros-users] ROS & DDS

[Brian Gerkey]

On Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 3:26 PM, Aravind Sundaresan
<asundaresan at gmail.com> wrote:
> We are using ROS in a DARPA program where we need the communication between
> the master and nodes as well as the messaging to be secure. Is there anybody
> else who finds this important? Does DDS provide secure communications?

You're not alone in wanting secure communications for robotics.  We
would be remiss in a major rewrite to completely ignore security
(which is not to say that we must implement security mechanisms, but
we'd better at least end up with a solid story about our approach to
security, with clear guidance to users).

As I understand it, there's a proposed extension to the DDS spec,
currently under review, to add security.  Here's a relevant
presentation:

http://www.slideshare.net/GerardoPardo/dds-security-standard

But given that DDS is apparently used in so many mission-critical
applications, surely there's some encryption happening, perhaps in
non-standard vendor-specific ways that vary by implementation?  Or
perhaps they're using DDS like we use ROS, where you're expected
secure your network.

brian.