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Re: [Cfrg] NSA sabotaging crypto standards

Paul Hoffman <paul.hoffman@vpnc.org> Thu, 06 February 2014 18:48 UTC

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From: Paul Hoffman <paul.hoffman@vpnc.org>
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To: Watson Ladd <watsonbladd@gmail.com>
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Subject: Re: [Cfrg] NSA sabotaging crypto standards
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On Feb 6, 2014, at 9:00 AM, Watson Ladd <watsonbladd@gmail.com> wrote:

> IETF working groups will follow suit if they see that some new
> protocol is documented by the CFRG.

Can you give examples of that? Having been active in many IETF WGs for 15+ years, I can't think of one, but I could have forgotten some.

> That's the role
> the CFRG exists to play: supporting IETF WGs when they have to
> evaluate crypto.

Evaluating crypto is quite different than creating "some new protocol". The CFRG most often evaluates existing crypto protocols and modes, it doesn't create them.

> Furthermore, if we aren't actually
> producing documents meant to say "This is X, and X is good" for some
> definition of good, what are we doing here?

Lots of things:

- This is X, and while X is good, doing Y in X would be very bad

- This is X, and we have some shaky feelings about X, but we're totally fine with Z, which can be used in most of the same places

- Current IETF protocols use X, but X is now out of favor for these reasons; please strongly consider using Z

In the latter two cases, Z is not "some new protocol", they are existing ones that have been studied.

--Paul Hoffman

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