Re: [Cfrg] RGLC on draft-irtf-cfrg-kangarootwelve-01

[Benoît Viguier <[e-mail]>]

Hi Stephen,

To answer your question:

Yep, I had a quick look and didn't find what I thought
I was remembering;-) It may be that what I was thinking
about was HKDF (RFC 5869), so let me ask it that way:
is there a clear benefit in using k12 instead of using
HKDF to get the output length wanted? If there is, and
it's possible to state that in a short paragraph, that
might be a useful addition. (While HKDF doesn't have
arbitrary output length, it can produce long enough
outputs for many uses I guess.)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

K12 has the merit of being a simpler construction and can be used in
place of HKDF.

In the scope of IoT or embedded devices, another advantage of K12 when
its input contains a key is that it is easier to protect against DPA
than SHA-1 or SHA-2.

Kind Regards

On 2/18/20 4:18 PM, Stephen Farrell wrote:
> Hiya,
>
> Coupla follow ups below...
>
> On 18/02/2020 14:45, Benoît Viguier wrote:
>> Dear Stephen,
>>
>> Thank you for your comments on our draft!
>>
>> Please find below some answers and comments.
>>
>> On 2/16/20 3:53 PM, Stephen Farrell wrote:
>>> Hiya,
>>>
>>> On 16/02/2020 11:16, Alexey Melnikov wrote:
>>>> Dear CFRG participants,
>>>>
>>>> This message is starting 2 weeks RGLC on
>>>> draft-irtf-cfrg-kangarootwelve-01 ("KangarooTwelve"), that will end
>>>> on March 1st 2020. If you've read the document and think that it is
>>>> ready (or not ready) for publication as an RFC, please send a message
>>>> in reply to this email or directly to CFRG chairs
>>>> ([e-mail]). If you have detailed comments, these would
>>>> also be very helpful at this point.
>>> I had my 1st read of this and think it needs a bit of
>>> work, but am overall unclear if it ought be published
>>> now. (I also looked back at the list archive messages
>>> referring to k12.)
>>>
>>> I don't think CFRG ought be publishing very novel
>>> algorithm RFCs and am unclear how much study k12 has
>>> gotten outside the author team. The main reference
>>> given [1] has pointers to lots of work with titles that
>>> mention reduced-round keccak but it's unclear (to me,
>>> not having read 'em;-) how  relevant those are to k12.
>> Actually, all cryptanalysis of Keccak/SHA-3 is relevant to K12.
>> Cryptanalysis resources are scarce, we chose as an explicit design goal
>> to make K12 rely on cryptanalysis of Keccak/SHA-3.
>>
>> To be more precise, K12 is made of two layers:
>>
>> 1) The inner function F. This layer relies on cryptanalysis. K12's F
>> function is exactly Keccak[r=1344, c=256] (as in SHAKE128) reduced to 12
>> rounds (no tweaks!). Hence, any reduced-round cryptanalysis on Keccak is
>> also a reduced round cryptanalysis of K12's F (provided the number of
>> rounds attacked is not higher than 12 of course).
>>
>> 2) The tree hashing over F. This layer is a mode on top of F that does
>> not introduce any vulnerability thanks to the use of Sakura coding
>> proven secure in the paper [Bertoni et al., ACNS 2014].
>>
>> This reasoning is detailed and formalized in the paper [Bertoni et al.,
>> ACNS 2018], which is peer-reviewed.
> Thanks. It sounds like referring to that section
> of that paper would help so. (Your explanation there
> helped me fwiw.)
>
>>> [1] is also used as [KECCAK_CRYPTANALYSIS] in the draft
>>> and is where the authors are pointing us to find
>>> security analysis of k12. I don't think an author-
>>> maintained web page like that is really good enough
>>> as the key reference for an RFC like this.
>> Good point indeed!
>>
>> One option would be that we put all the references in the RFC. We are
>> not sure this is the right place for it, as we see an RFC more as
>> implementation guide rather than an analysis paper. For example:
>> https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7748 does not mention anything with
>> respect to the security of X25519 which is detailed in section 3 of
>> https://www.iacr.org/cryptodb/archive/2006/PKC/3351/3351.pdf.
>> Nevertheless, we are open to this option.
>>
>> Another option would be to refer to [K12, Section 5]. In that section
>> attacks with the highest number of rounds are discussed and
>> corresponding paper are referred to. 
> Yep, that sounds good to me.
>
>> However with the possible
>> appearance of new cryptanalysis results, this section would become outdated.
> Just to be clear - including the URL as an additional
> reference as well seems like a good idea. It's only
> depending on that as the main source that seems a bit
> iffy.
>
>>> I totally get why the authors would find that
>>> easier/better, but that won't be true for a reader in
>>> 20 years time, so better to put in the precise
>>> references now. That should also clarify the extent to
>>> which those are about k12 (as defined here) and not
>>> about something else.
>> We agree with this, however Keccak cryptanalysis directly applies to K12.
>>> I think the references really need fixing before this
>>> ought be published. I'm not sure where the right line
>>> ought be drawn in terms of maturity of an algorithm
>>> before CFRG blesses it with an RFC. <4 years does seem
>>> short, even if this is strongly based on keccak. (Hence
>>> me being unsure overall.)
>> For us the maturity amounts to more than 4 years. Being SHA-3, Keccak is
>> a high-profile cryptanalysis target. As we did not tweak the round
>> function, K12 relies on sustained cryptanalysis since 2008.
> Ack. If nobody's gotten near breaking 12 rounds and
> since you didn't tweak it, that does sound convincing
> to me. Thanks.
>
>>> Separately, the draft could benefit from some guidance
>>> as to when this is thought to be useful - presumably
>>> that's when one wants a hash output that's >512 bits.
>>> IIRC, there are other RFCs (forget numbers, sorry),
>>> that describe how to get such outputs using standard
>>> hash functions. If there are such RFCs, it'd be good
>>> to reference those. Either way saying why and when this
>>> is preferable to use of standard hash functions would
>>> be good.
>> The standard hash functions (SHA-1 and SHA-2) are subject to length
>> extension attacks.
> Yep, I had a quick look and didn't find what I thought
> I was remembering;-) It may be that what I was thinking
> about was HKDF (RFC 5869), so let me ask it that way:
> is there a clear benefit in using k12 instead of using
> HKDF to get the output length wanted? If there is, and
> it's possible to state that in a short paragraph, that
> might be a useful addition. (While HKDF doesn't have
> arbitrary output length, it can produce long enough
> outputs for many uses I guess.)
>
> Cheers,
> S.
>
>
>> And in all cases, K12 will be faster than SHA-3. If
>> that makes it clearer, we could add a short guidance as to when the user
>> can benefit the most from K12. We could simply reuse the arguments from
>> these slides: https://benoit.viguier.nl/files/K12atMontreal.pdf
>>> Other than the above, the draft seems clear (though
>>> I didn't try implement) and many thanks for not
>>> defining the usual pile of pointless variants/options:-)
>> Thanks, yes, that was another design goal for K12.
>>
-- 
Benoît Viguier
Software Engineer - PhD Student | Cryptography & Formal Methods
Radboud University | Mercator 1, Toernooiveld 212
6525 EC Nijmegen, the Netherlands | www.viguier.nl