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

[Sean Turner <[e-mail]>]

On Jan 08, 2014, at 07:20, Paterson, Kenny <[e-mail]> wrote:

> 
> 
> On 08/01/2014 12:06, "David McGrew" <[e-mail]> 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

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spt