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Re: [Cfrg] CFRG feedback on signing with secp256k1 curve

Peter Gutmann <pgut001@cs.auckland.ac.nz> Wed, 13 June 2018 08:45 UTC

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From: Peter Gutmann <pgut001@cs.auckland.ac.nz>
To: Mike Jones <Michael.Jones=40microsoft.com@dmarc.ietf.org>, "cfrg@irtf.org" <cfrg@irtf.org>
Thread-Topic: CFRG feedback on signing with secp256k1 curve
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Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2018 08:45:31 +0000
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Subject: Re: [Cfrg] CFRG feedback on signing with secp256k1 curve
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Mike Jones <Michael.Jones=40microsoft.com@dmarc.ietf.org> writes:

>because Blockchain is using secp256k1 and is under tremendous scrutiny, it’s
>my assumption that if major security flaws were known, people would be widely
>talking about them

It's worse than that: Because of Blockchain, secp256k1 is under tremendous
scrutiny, and anyone finding a weakness is highly motivated *not* to talk
about it.  

secp256k1 is the curve I'd least want to use because it's such a massive
target for highly-motivated attackers.

Peter.

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