[Cfrg] malicious DH base points [was Re: should the CFRG really strive for consensus?]

[Dan Brown <[e-mail]>]

‎The paper talks about the possibility of malicious base points for DH:

Boaz Tsaban: Fast generators for the Diffie-Hellman key agreement protocol and malicious standards. IACR Cryptology ePrint Archive 2005: 231 (2005)

It may be far-fetched, but the paper seems to show that the independence of DH from the base point is ‎not quite a mathematical certainty, unless the paper has been refuted in further research. 

Best regards, 

-- Dan
From: Adam Langley
Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2014 9:45 AM
To: Christoph Anton Mitterer
Cc: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: [Cfrg] should the CFRG really strive for consensus?

On Dec 31, 2014 1:50 PM, "Christoph Anton Mitterer" <[e-mail]> wrote:
> I think it's really a bad idea for the CFRG to strive so much for
> consensus.

If you believe in the security of curve25519 then you also believe in the security of Microsoft's current position at ~128 bits. They have the same structure and thus strictly the same strength.

There's /no/ possibility of weakening anything, mathematically, with a different base point (in the correct subgroup) or by using an isogeny.

IRTF groups do not, technically, have to reach consensus. However, everyone does have to function on the same Internet at the end of the day.
Cheers

AGL