With the current approach, it's possible to use Kafka ACLs to improve security.
See Kafka Temporary Security Proposal <add link>
Comments were made in the RFC suggesting that the proposal would prevent that from being an option if accepted/adopted.
Marc Johnson (via chat): We don't have a quorum... so an official decision won't happen in this meeting
Managing ACLs is currently the responsibility of system operators
This is currently a manual and cumbersome process... Need to restart brokers, need to be aware of when topics are created, requires credential management, etc.
Olamide Kolawole: The proposed changes are optional; essentially an opt-in.
Marc Johnson: If I understand correctly, Julian Ladisch indicates in the RFC that it's currently possible to implement the temporary Kafka security using ACLs and Olamide Kolawole suggests it isn't.
Olamide Kolawole: It's not possible because code changes are required (provide credentials to authenticate with Kafka.
Jeremy Huff: would adopting the proposal in the RFC paint us into a corner (security-wise)?
Olamide Kolawole: I don't think so. It would be possible to use message encryption for instance, but that needs to be thought through and formally proposed.
Julian Ladisch: if the modules automatically create the topics, then using ACLs is indeed challenging, but if you have some external process which creates the topics, it is more feasible.
Julian Ladisch: It might be sufficient to document the issue in the RFC. It doesn't necessarily need to be a deal breaker for acceptance of the RFC.
The problematic statement in the RFC is that the one around ACLs being out of scope. Julian Ladisch feels it should be in-scope.
Julian Ladisch maybe "in-scope" is a poor choice of words, but it is related or at least of note.