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Re: [Cfrg] Recommending secp256k1 in FIPS 186-5

Jeff Burdges <burdges@gnunet.org> Sat, 21 December 2019 00:31 UTC

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Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2019 01:31:18 +0100
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Subject: Re: [Cfrg] Recommending secp256k1 in FIPS 186-5
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> On 19 Dec 2019, at 18:13, Jeff Burdges <burdges@gnunet.org> wrote:
> Third, there are many poorly designed, or outright insecure, protocols like SECIO are built on secp256k1 whose usage should not be encouraged.  Any recommendation for secp256k1 makes these protocols might encourage their usage.  We should also be wary of nasty interactions between existing secp256k1 protocols like BIP32 and ECDSA multisigs.

I neglected to mention that secp256k1 has many really bad implementations for the curve itself, which invites different problems from all the bad protocols.

Jeff

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