Re: [Cfrg] QKD is pointless (was: Re: considering new topics for CFRG)

"Paterson, Kenny" <Kenny.Paterson@rhul.ac.uk> Wed, 08 January 2014 12:21 UTC

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From: "Paterson, Kenny" <Kenny.Paterson@rhul.ac.uk>
To: David McGrew <mcgrew@cisco.com>, Sean Turner <TurnerS@ieca.com>
Thread-Topic: [Cfrg] QKD is pointless (was: Re: considering new topics for CFRG)
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Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2014 12:20:50 +0000
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References: <52C755AA.70200@cisco.com> <33E0BF53-A331-4646-B080-FD4F6E13916E@ieca.com> <52CD314B.2000604@cisco.com>
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Subject: Re: [Cfrg] QKD is pointless (was: Re: considering new topics for CFRG)
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On 08/01/2014 12:06, "David McGrew" <mcgrew@cisco.com> wrote:

>Hi Sean,
>
>On 01/08/2014 12:26 AM, Sean Turner wrote:
>> My list is kind of short:
>
>thanks for sharing your top of mind list, it will help us to prioritize
>work.
>
>>
>> 0) Could the CFRG get behind these recommendations for RSA-OAEP/PSS or
>>not:
>> http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/saag/current/msg04481.html
>> http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/saag/current/msg04482.html
>>
>> If so, let¹s do a draft!
>>
>> 1) Assuming RSA goes kaput, it seems like we¹re moving towards EC (am I
>>wrong here) then are these EC-based documents worth saying more about
>>(e.g., in the next version of the protocol use this or run away in fear):
>> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc6979/
>> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-peck-ecdhpop/
>> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-jivsov-ecc-compact/
>>
>> 2) Is QKD something we need to start considering:
>> http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-nagayama-ipsecme-ipsec-with-qkd-00.txt
>> http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-ghernaouti-sfaxi-ppp-qkd-00.txt
>
>#0 and #1 are well worth discussion.   For now, I will only comment on #2.
>
>Quantum Key Distribution does not provide a solution to any problem that
>we have at hand, and is not worthy of serious consideration for
>extensive use in the Internet.

<excellent explanation of the shortcomings of QKD excised>

>
>My talk isn't online (just mentioned but not archived
>http://bristolcrypto.blogspot.com/2012_12_01_archive.html)   If we need
>to get these points understood more widely, we could publish something
>on it.

Thanks for the reminder about this talk, which I very much enjoyed at the
time.

A few years back, we wrote a paper [1] explaining why we believed that QKD
is not commercially interesting. Some of the points are orthogonal to
yours, some overlap.

[1] Quantum cryptography: a practical information security perspective.
Kenneth G. Paterson, Fred Piper, Ruediger Schack
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0406147

Cheers

Kenny