Re: [Cfrg] Rerun: Elliptic Curves - preferred curves around 256bit work factor (ends on March 3rd)

[David Leon Gil <[e-mail]>]

This seems to be about primes, not curves. My comments w.r.t. primes:

448: Preferred. Superb performance, reasonably easy to implement
arithmetic in the field safely.

480, 512, 521: No, no, and no.

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I actually quite like M521. Mersenne arithmetic is fast when
implemented by experts. And yet it is possible even for a bright
ten-year-old to implement Mersenne multiplication correctly using full
reduction.

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> On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 02:27:58PM +0000, Alexey Melnikov wrote:
>> CFRG chairs are starting another poll:
>>
>> Q3: This is a Quaker poll (please answer one of "preferred", "acceptable" or
>> "no") for each curve specified below:

Finally: I take strong exception to the design of this poll.

I cannot see any explanation for the voting method other than that the
chairs are attempting to force the selection of M521 by sleight of
hand. M521 is generally unobjectionable -- only a hard-liner on speed
or 64-byte alignment could reasonably not select it as either
"Acceptable" or "Preferred".

Therefore I must be unreasonable: No, no, and no.