Re: [CFRG] Second RGLC on draft-irtf-cfrg-pairing-friendly-curves

I think Michael's comment points at the right direction for this draft. It
would be beneficial to have a CFRG specification for those curves and the
draft's core describes them well. I suggest that the proposers take off the
edges and put it up for review again.

Marek

On Fri, Mar 19, 2021 at 12:45 PM Michael Scott <mike.scott=
40miracl.com@dmarc.ietf.org> wrote:

> The purpose of this proposed draft standard entitled “Pairing Friendly
> Curves” is to suggest standardised state-of-the-art curves for the safe
> implementation of pairing-based cryptography. The clue is in the title. The
> curves suggested are not controversial, and they are well enough described
> to allow unambiguous implementation (I have done it myself).
>
> I think  that the draft under consideration is not intended as, and should
> not be judged as, an attempt to vindicate the whole field of pairing-based
> crypto. It is just about the curves.
>
> The comments  from Rene do not anywhere suggest any problem with the
> curves themselves. Clearly “ditching” the whole proposal (as he suggests)
> would be a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
>
> Might I suggest that the proposers cut back their proposal so as to just
> describe the curves, some test vectors, and a heavily curtailed
> bibliography. There is no actual requirement for much of the surrounding
> commentary. I don’t think this document needs to take on an educational
> brief. A reference to the excellent “Guide to Pairing-based Cryptography”
> would suffice. Of the RFCs I have attempted implementations from, the
> shortest have always been the best.
>
> The alternative  would be an attempt to respond point-by-point to Rene’s
> objections in order to keep the draft in its current shape. I suspect that
> this would involve multiple over-and-backs (as some of Rene's concerns seem
> pretty opaque to me), and would be a waste of everyone’s time.
>
> Mike Scott
>
> On Thu, Mar 18, 2021 at 5:36 PM Stanislav V. Smyshlyaev <smyshsv@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Dear CFRG,
>>
>> This is to cancel the Second RGLC for Pairing-Friendly Curves for now.
>>
>> A part of the questions (
>> https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/cfrg/kAQwgiKejMby4aYONkQzt0ZiOOU/
>> from Rene Struik with the additional concerns related to the -08 version of
>> the draft) raised in the list has not been replied publicly. The replies
>> for other reviews were provided in
>> https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/cfrg/2i183zl28y4fK54oIwqEfEVVu0U/;
>> all later messages contained only support of the draft, but that does not
>> change the fact that one part of the concerns has not been discussed.
>>
>> Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience.
>> The RGLC will be restarted after all received comments are discussed
>> publicly in the mailing list.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Stanislav
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, 18 Mar 2021 at 18:23, Stanislav V. Smyshlyaev <smyshsv@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Rene,
>>>
>>> Yumi replied to the received comments in the following message in
>>> December:
>>> https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/cfrg/2i183zl28y4fK54oIwqEfEVVu0U/ (after
>>> the line "Followings are our reply comments for Rene's comments in RGLC.").
>>> After that message there were two messages in the mailing list with
>>> support of the draft, no new concerns.
>>>
>>> After that message there was also one clarifying message from Yumi in
>>> February about the normative references (I asked to send that message since
>>> I had found out that that comment remained unanswered).
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Stanislav
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, 18 Mar 2021 at 15:52, Rene Struik <rstruik.ext@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Stanislav:
>>>>
>>>> I am puzzled that the 2nd WGLC is on rev09 of the pairing curve draft
>>>> (i.e., the one posted on Nov 16th last year).
>>>>
>>>> On Nov 11th, I posted another review on rev08 of this document (see
>>>> [1]) {for my review of the previous rev07 version, see [2]}.
>>>>
>>>> I could not find any response by the authors to my detailed comments of
>>>> my rev08 review. Since they posted the current rev09 version (that is under
>>>> 2nd WGLC) on Nov 16th, considerations of those comments must have happened
>>>> within that 5-day time window. The authors, however, stated in [3]
>>>> "Because we are currently considering Rene's latest comments, I'm sorry but
>>>> this version does not reflect them".
>>>>
>>>> Isn't the normal step to consider received comments? If so, isn't the
>>>> 2nd WGLC premature?
>>>>
>>>> (FYI - the authors only commented - after almost four months - on my
>>>> minor note regarding normative vs. informative reference classification,
>>>> but not at all on the much larger review I did in [1].)
>>>>
>>>> Best regards, Rene
>>>>
>>>> [1] Review RS of draft-irtf-cfrg-pairing-friendly-curves-08 (Nov 11,
>>>> 2020):
>>>> https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/cfrg/kAQwgiKejMby4aYONkQzt0ZiOOU/
>>>>
>>>> [2] Review RS of draft-irtf-cfrg-pairing-friendly-curves-07 (July 12,
>>>> 2020):
>>>> https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/cfrg/pW71h3yUETnqedHsH0m3rwzPnm4/
>>>>
>>>> [2] Message Yumi Sakemi on draft-irtf-cfrg-pairing-friendly-curves-09
>>>> (Nov 16, 2020):
>>>> https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/cfrg/NNpHIWGOvsSBd22gg7Ve10zDhT4/
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 2021-03-18 7:04 a.m., Stanislav V. Smyshlyaev wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Dear CFRG participants,
>>>>
>>>> This message starts a second 3-week RGLC on "Pairing-Friendly Curves"
>>>> (draft-irtf-cfrg-pairing-friendly-curves-09), that will end on April 9th.
>>>> See
>>>> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-irtf-cfrg-pairing-friendly-curves/
>>>> for the latest version of the draft.
>>>>
>>>> We are having the second RGLC since Yumi Sakemi has provided (see
>>>> https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/cfrg/2-LVS6EXc4TfY1zlHRGUXe3cu6w/)
>>>> replies for the questions raised after the first RGLC.
>>>>
>>>> Please send your comments, as well as expression of support to publish
>>>> as an RFC (or possible reasons for not doing so) in reply to this message
>>>> or directly to CFRG chairs.
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Stanislav, Nick and Alexey
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> CFRG mailing listCFRG@irtf.orghttps://www.irtf.org/mailman/listinfo/cfrg
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> email: rstruik.ext@gmail.com | Skype: rstruik
>>>> cell: +1 (647) 867-5658 | US: +1 (415) 287-3867
>>>>
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