Re: [COSE] draft-ietf-lwig-curve-representations-13

[Rene Struik <[e-mail]>]

Hi John:

I would be eager to have an answer to the question I posed earlier:

    /I could not find the procedure you seemingly had in mind below in
    RFC 8152 (a search in RFC 8152 on the term "email" also did not
    yield this info). Isn't this all described in Section 16.11 [1]? If
    you could point me to what I am apparently missing, please let me know!/


Since you seem to know much more about IETF processes than I do, any 
timely help much appreciated! {I am sure it would also help others more 
verses into technical matters than procedural questions.}

Best regards, Rene

On 2021-02-14 4:56 p.m., Rene Struik wrote:
> Hi John:
>
> To my knowledge, I followed the steps described in Section 16.11 [1] 
> (Expert Review Instructions), already in April 2019 (almost 2 years ago):
>
>     16.11. Expert Review Instructions
>     All of the IANA registries established in this document are
>     defined as expert review. This section gives some general
>     guidelines forwhat the experts should be looking for, but they are
>     being designated as experts for a reason, so they should be given
>     substantial latitude.
>
>     Expert reviewers should take into consideration the following points:
>
>     [snip (enumeration of four aspects to consider)]
>
> I could not find the procedure you seemingly had in mind below in RFC 
> 8152 (a search in RFC 8152 on the term "email" also did not yield this 
> info). Isn't this all described in Section 16.11 [1]? If you could 
> point me to what I am apparently missing, please let me know!
>
> In all fairness, I think you would have to agree that I did reach out 
> to the relevant actors at the time, in good conscience, in a timely 
> manner (in contrast to the language you used in your forelast email).
>
> Best regards, Rene
>
> Ref: [1] https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8152#section-16.11
>
> On 2021-02-14 4:08 p.m., John Mattsson wrote:
>>
>> Hi Rene,
>>
>> True, Jim used to be one the experts. My comment that you did not 
>> talk to any of the experts is not true.
>>
>> The only IANA history I know of started on 6 Nov 2020 when Göran (one 
>> of the experts) followed the procedure and sent a mail to the COSE 
>> mailing list commenting and asking about the COSE registrations. I 
>> and several other people in COSE WG seem to share Göran’s concerns. 
>> You cannot expect COSE WG to read your draft before somebody send it 
>> to the list. If I had written the draft I would personally had sent 
>> in to COSE a long time ago. I wish someone would have helped you with 
>> that.
>>
>> You need to ask Göran and the other two experts on the status but to 
>> me it seems like the COSE WG is aligning on the technical aspects of 
>> the IANA registrations:
>>
>> https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/cose/?gbt=1&index=IEx4C67-IGkQ9BpI8DUFxhElcwA
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> John
>>
>> *From: *Rene Struik <[e-mail]>
>> *Date: *Sunday, 14 February 2021 at 20:11
>> *To: *John Mattsson <[e-mail]>, Göran Selander 
>> <goran.selander=[e-mail]>, "[e-mail]" 
>> <[e-mail]>, "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>
>> *Subject: *(small timeline correction) Re: [COSE] 
>> draft-ietf-lwig-curve-representations-13
>>
>> Correction: LWIG WGLC was in August 2019 and not August 2020, as I 
>> mistakenly put in my previous note (i.e., already 18 1/2 months or 
>> more than 1 1/2 years ago).
>>
>> See 
>> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-lwig-curve-representations/history/ 
>> <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-lwig-curve-representations/history/>
>>
>> On 2021-02-14 2:04 p.m., Rene Struik wrote:
>>
>>     Hi John:
>>
>>     I did have a brief look at my past correspondence on iana-cose
>>     code points, where I discussed this with Jim Schaad (designated
>>     iana cose expert over the relevant time period):
>>
>>     - email correspondences {March 27, 2019; April 12, 2019; April
>>     15, 2019};
>>
>>     - f/u. discussions w/ Jim Schaad (triggered by trying to help out
>>     Pascal Thubert on his ap-nd Editor queue draft): phone call {Thu
>>     March 16, 2020}; email correspondence {April 6/7/22/25, 2020}
>>
>>     History of iana sections in curve-draft document:
>>
>>     - iana/cose section has been in there since April 14, 2019 (v04
>>     of the draft). See
>>     https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-lwig-curve-representations/04/
>>     <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-lwig-curve-representations/04/>
>>
>>     - WGLC LWIG group: August 6, 2019;
>>
>>     - IETF Last-Call: August 24, 2020 (two-week);
>>
>>     - your comment: Nov 9, 2020
>>
>>     - your (nontechnical) email below: today, Feb 14, 2021 (32 days
>>     after my last email to the list).
>>
>>     Contrary to what you seem to suggest below, my records above
>>     indicate I have reached out to the relevant people already almost
>>     two (!) years ago, in good conscience (where email and phone
>>     conversations with Jim Schaad were productive, with 1-2 days
>>     feedback loop). I have trouble understanding why during all this
>>     time the technical points you seem to take issue with have not
>>     been narrowed down (as I repeatedly suggested offline and which
>>     is good engineering practice). Please note that even something as
>>     simple an uncontroversial as registering Wei25519 and Wei448 has
>>     not been stricken off the list since the November 2020 note. I
>>     think one should reflect why this (in an Internet *Engineering*
>>     Task Force).
>>
>>     Best regards, Rene
>>
>>     On 2021-02-14 3:13 a.m., John Mattsson wrote:
>>
>>         Hi Rene,
>>
>>         >I value your feedback, even though you brought up your points
>>         more than two months after the
>>
>>         >IETF Last-Call.
>>
>>         All the comments has been purely regarding the IANA
>>         registrations for COSE. To my understanding you did not
>>         discuss these registrations with the dedicated IANA experts
>>         or the COSE WG beforehand. The suggested COSE registration
>>         are quite strange. Any delay is purely due to you not
>>         discussing and anchoring these registrations. I have
>>         suggested that that this issue is discussed at the interim on
>>         Tuesday, but it is not my job to drive your registrations. I
>>         am just commenting on the questions from the dedicated IANA
>>         experts.
>>
>>         You can always remove the COSE registrations, but I think
>>         that would be sad. I agree with you that a registration for
>>         Wei25519 is good to have. Another alternative is to move the
>>         registration to a separate draft.
>>
>>         >I uploaded a new version of the lwig curve draft [1], changing the
>>         intended status to "standards track". I hope
>>
>>         >this helps.
>>
>>         You cannot just change the status from “informational” to
>>         “standards track”. They are very different things.
>>         Informational is just general information, while standards
>>         track means IETF consensus and recommendation. Changing the
>>         status would (I assume) require wg consensus and then redoing
>>         the last calls.
>>
>>         /John
>>
>>         *From: *Rene Struik <[e-mail]>
>>         <mailto:[e-mail]>
>>         *Date: *Wednesday, 13 January 2021 at 15:26
>>         *To: *John Mattsson <[e-mail]>
>>         <mailto:[e-mail]>, Göran Selander
>>         <goran.selander=[e-mail]>
>>         <mailto:goran.selander=[e-mail]>,
>>         "[e-mail]" <mailto:[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
>>         <mailto:[e-mail]>, "[e-mail]"
>>         <mailto:[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <mailto:[e-mail]>
>>         *Subject: *Re: [COSE] draft-ietf-lwig-curve-representations-13
>>
>>         Hi Goran, John:
>>
>>         Please let me know if my response to the COSE mailing list
>>         (Dec 19th) works for you. If you have comments, please
>>         suggest constructive improvements.
>>
>>         I really would like to get closure on this.
>>
>>         I value your feedback, even though you brought up your points
>>         more than two months after the IETF Last-Call. I hope we can
>>         move forward without undue delays.
>>
>>         Thanks for your help, Rene
>>
>>         On 2020-12-19 11:01 a.m., Rene Struik wrote:
>>
>>             Dear John:
>>
>>             Based on your review and other feedback received, I
>>             slightly updated the draft and posted the latest revision
>>             as [1].
>>
>>             Your review below (of Nov 6, 2020) seems to bring up
>>             three topics, viz.: (1) definition of Wei25519 and Wei448
>>             vs. verbiage in NIST docs; (2) need for iana
>>             registrations for ECDSA25519 and ECDSA448; (3) need for
>>             iana registrations ECDH25519 and ECDH448.
>>
>>             Please find below some feedback.
>>
>>             General feedback:
>>
>>             Please bear in mind that the specifications of ECDSA25519
>>             and ECDH25519 in the lwig curve document aim to yield
>>             schemes that are strictly NIST-compliant (i.e., these
>>             would allow FIPS 140-2 accreditation if the curves would
>>             be in the "NIST recommended" set). See also Note 2 of
>>             Section 4.1 of [1]. A similar remark applies to ECDSA448
>>             and ECDH448.
>>
>>             Detailed feedback:
>>
>>             (1) Definition of Wei25519 and Wei448 vs. verbiage in
>>             NIST docs.
>>
>>             Draft NIST SP 800-186 indeed defines a short-Weierstrass
>>             version of Curve25519 [dubbed W-25519] and FIPS 186-5
>>             allows its use; similar for Curve448 [dubbed W-448
>>             there]). I have now added references to these draft
>>             specifications in the lwig-curve draft. I have
>>             double-checked all domain parameters, mappings between
>>             curve models, tables of isogeny details in the lwig draft
>>             and provided Sage scripts for the CFRG crypto panel
>>             review at the time. I do anticipate that NIST will arrive
>>             at the same values in their final publication when they
>>             decide to publish this. (I am happy to share Sage scripts
>>             for this purpose.)
>>
>>             (2) Need for iana registrations for ECDSA25519 and ECDSA448.
>>
>>             ECDSA is determined by an instantiation of hash function,
>>             curves, and representation conventions for inputs and
>>             outputs (i.e., message representation, curve point
>>             representation, and signature representation).
>>             a) ECDSA448 uses SHAKE256 under the hood, which is
>>             currently not defined with COSE. Hence, my request to
>>             register ECDSA w/ SHAKE256 and Wei448 as "ECDSA448".
>>             b) ECSA25519 uses SHA256 and Wei25519 under the hood. I
>>             thought to request to register "ECDSA25519" since this
>>             would allow referencing the quite careful write-up
>>             (Section 4.3), including bit/byte ordering, checks, and
>>             nondeterministic behavior (and, thereby, keeping this
>>             concise). Please note that this is very similar to the
>>             COSE IANA registry for "ES256k1" (ECDSA w/ SHA256 and
>>             Bitcoin curve secp256k1).
>>
>>             (3) Need for iana registrations ECDH25519 and ECDH448.
>>
>>             ECDH25519 and ECDH448 are co-factor Diffie-Hellman key
>>             establishment schemes and can, therefore, not be based on
>>             (cofactorless) Diffie-Hellman, as defined in RFC 8152.
>>             (Please note that there is no difference for the NIST
>>             curves, which all of co-factor h=1, but in our case one
>>             has h=8 and h=4, respectively). Here, one should note
>>             that the ECDH25519 and ECDH448 write-ups (Section 4.1 and
>>             4.3) quite carefully cross-reference co-factor ECDH in a
>>             NIST-compliant way. Apart from the co-factor ECDH vs.
>>             ECDH issue and objective to comply with all strict NIST
>>             validation checks, the objective was also to make sure
>>             that ECDH25519 and ECDH448 can be used in settings where
>>             either or both parties uses ephemeral keys (which is more
>>             flexible than what RFC 8152 allows).  Hence, the request
>>             to register "ECDH25519" and "ECDH448", to make sure this
>>             covers the intent of these schemes accurately and with
>>             precise description.
>>
>>             It is possible that I overlooked something in this
>>             assessment. If so, any constructive suggestions are welcome.
>>
>>             Ref: [1]
>>             https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-lwig-curve-representations-19
>>             <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-lwig-curve-representations-19>
>>
>>             Best regards, Rene
>>
>>             On 2020-11-06 5:04 p.m., John Mattsson wrote:
>>
>>                 Hi,
>>
>>                 I looked through this draft again. I think it is a
>>                 very good draft and I think it will be a solution to
>>                 some of the problems IoT devices have with Ed25519. I
>>                 will bring up this draft for discussion in the LAKE
>>                 WG at IETF 109.
>>
>>                 I find it strange that the IANA registration has not
>>                 been coordinated with COSE WG at all. I am a bit
>>                 surprised to see IANA registrations for
>>                 COSE/JOSE/PKIX/CMS at all in a LWIG draft (is that in
>>                 charter?). If LWIG wants to register new algorithms,
>>                 I think LWIG at a minimum should coordinate with COSE
>>                 WG and other groups. I think this draft should be
>>                 presented at the next COSE WG meeting.
>>
>>                 I support registration of W-25519 and W-448 curves as
>>                 long they agree with NIST. I would like answers to
>>                 the questions why ECDSA25519 and ECDH25519 are needed
>>                 at all. There is no ECDSAP256 and no ECDHP256, so why
>>                 are specific algorithm registration needed for
>>                 W-25519?  It makes no sense to me that a special
>>                 signature registration is needed for COSE but not for
>>                 PKIX? If PKIX can use ecdsa-with-SHA256 why cannot
>>                 COSE use ES256?
>>
>>                 I don't think ANSI X9.62 is an acceptable normative
>>                 reference. NIST just removed the normative reference
>>                 to ANSI X9.62 in SP 186-5.
>>
>>                 Cheers,
>>
>>                 John
>>
>>                 *From: *COSE <[e-mail]>
>>                 <mailto:[e-mail]> on behalf of Rene
>>                 Struik <[e-mail]>
>>                 <mailto:[e-mail]>
>>                 *Date: *Friday, 6 November 2020 at 20:37
>>                 *To: *Göran Selander
>>                 <goran.selander=[e-mail]>
>>                 <mailto:goran.selander=[e-mail]>,
>>                 "[e-mail]" <mailto:[e-mail]>
>>                 <[e-mail]> <mailto:[e-mail]>,
>>                 "[e-mail]" <mailto:[e-mail]>
>>                 <[e-mail]> <mailto:[e-mail]>
>>                 *Subject: *Re: [COSE]
>>                 draft-ietf-lwig-curve-representations-13
>>
>>                 Hi Goran:
>>
>>                 Please find below some brief feedback on your note:
>>
>>                 - the naming wei25519 has been around since the first
>>                 draft (Nov 13, 2017, i.e., 3 years minus 1 week ago),
>>                 see [1]. NIST indeed produced two draft documents,
>>                 viz. Draft NIST SP 800-186 and Draft FIPS Pub 186-5
>>                 (on October 31, 2019), which generated lots of (to my
>>                 knowledge still unresolved) comments during public
>>                 review. It is hard to refer to that document, since
>>                 it is only a draft and unfortunately has quite a few
>>                 errors.
>>
>>                 - earlier versions of the lwig draft have received
>>                 reviews by the crypto review panel (Stanislavslav
>>                 Smyshlyaev), iotdir early-review (Daniel Migault);
>>                 the sections on COSE/JOSE code point assignments
>>                 resulted from a phone call and various email
>>                 exchanges with Jim Schaad; the section on PKIX/CMS
>>                 was suggested during IETF Last-Call secdir-review
>>                 (Russ Housley) and reviewed by him. The document had
>>                 IETF Last-Call Aug 24, 2020. See, e.g., the status
>>                 pages [1].
>>
>>                 - ECDSA has been around since 1999, has been widely
>>                 standardized, and has seen lots of analysis, where
>>                 ECDSA25519 is simply yet another instantiation.
>>                 Signature generation and verification times for
>>                 ECDSA25519 should be similar to those of Ed25519
>>                 (since timing is dominated by scalar multiplication,
>>                 where one could simply use Montgomery arithmetic
>>                 [3]). In my personal view, ECDSA25519 may be more
>>                 secure than Ed25519 (if only because it is
>>                 non-deterministic, see Security section [6]); similar
>>                 side-channel care has to be taken in either case.
>>
>>                  - As mentioned in the draft, one can easily switch
>>                 between Wei25519 and Curve25519 (which requires a
>>                 single field addition or subtraction only, i.e.,
>>                 <.01%, see Appendix E.2 [7]). As mentioned in the
>>                 draft, one could use Wei25519.-3 with an existing
>>                 generic implementation that hardcodes the domain
>>                 parameter a=-3, but needs to compute an isogeny and
>>                 dual isogeny for this (adding 5-10% cost, see
>>                 Appendix G.2 [8]]) and a ~9.5kB table (see Section
>>                 5.3 [4]). However, if one already has generic
>>                 hardware support, one may still have a significant
>>                 win (see Section 6 [5]).
>>
>>                 - The isogeny for Wei25519.-3 has odd degree l=47,
>>                 which is co-prime with the order of the curve, so is
>>                 in fact invertible. With Wei448.-3, the isogeny has
>>                 degree l=2, so is not invertible; however, this does
>>                 not really matter, since it is invertible with
>>                 correctly generated public-private key pairs (which
>>                 have prime/odd order) and the factor two is absorbed
>>                 with co-factor ECDH, where h=4 then.
>>
>>                 I hope this helps.
>>
>>                 (*) For ease of tracking, it would help if iana
>>                 related comments are flagged in the subject line
>>                 (e.g., include (iana) in the beginning hereof).
>>
>>                 Best regards, Rene
>>
>>                 Ref with hyperlinks:
>>
>>                 [1]
>>                 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-struik-lwig-curve-representations-00
>>                 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-struik-lwig-curve-representations-00>
>>
>>                 [2]
>>                 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-lwig-curve-representations/
>>                 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-lwig-curve-representations/>
>>
>>                 [3]
>>                 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-lwig-curve-representations-13#section-4.3
>>                 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-lwig-curve-representations-13#section-4.3>
>>
>>                 [4]
>>                 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-lwig-curve-representations-13#section-5.3
>>                 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-lwig-curve-representations-13#section-5.3>
>>
>>                 [5]
>>                 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-lwig-curve-representations-13#section-6
>>                 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-lwig-curve-representations-13#section-6>
>>
>>                 [6]
>>                 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-lwig-curve-representations-13#section-8
>>                 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-lwig-curve-representations-13#section-8>
>>
>>                 [7]
>>                 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-lwig-curve-representations-13#appendix-E.2
>>                 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-lwig-curve-representations-13#appendix-E.2>
>>
>>                 [8]
>>                 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-lwig-curve-representations-13#appendix-G.2
>>                 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-lwig-curve-representations-13#appendix-G.2>
>>
>>                 On 2020-11-06 11:19 a.m., Göran Selander wrote:
>>
>>                     Hi,
>>
>>                     Apologies for cross-posting LWIG and COSE. I had
>>                     a brief look at
>>                     draft-ietf-lwig-curve-representations-13 and
>>                     noticed it registers a lot of new COSE(andJOSE,
>>                     PKIX, and CMS) algorithms. Has this draft been
>>                     discussed in COSE(JOSE/CURDLE)? If not, perhaps
>>                     it should be before being progressed?
>>
>>                     1.The draft needs to manage the overlap with NIST
>>                     SP 800-186, which should be referenced and
>>                     mappings, name of curves, etc. aligned. The draft
>>                     defines Wei25519 and Wei448. It is unclear if
>>                     these are identical to W-25519, W-448 as defined
>>                     in NIST SP 800-186. We probably would not want
>>                     two slightly different definitions and/or names,
>>                     multiple COSE code points, etc.
>>
>>                     1.The draft registers the COSE algorithm
>>                     "ECDSA25519" as "ECDSA with SHA-256 and curve
>>                     Wei25519". That is not how the other COSE
>>                     signature algorithms work. They work like PKIX
>>                     where the curve is given by the public key. Also,
>>                     why cannot W-25519 be used with the existing
>>                     ES256 signature algorithm?
>>
>>                     2.The draft registers the COSE algorithm
>>                     "ECDH25519". There are no COSE ECDH algorithms
>>                     for P-256, why is anECDH algorithm for W-25519 be
>>                     needed?
>>
>>                     Other questions. I may have missed it, but
>>
>>                     2.is it described what are the expected security
>>                     properties of ECDSA25519(including mapping)
>>                     compared to Ed25519? For example w.r.t. side
>>                     channel attacks?
>>
>>                     3.has any performance measurements been made
>>                     comparing ECDSA25519 (including mapping) and Ed25519?
>>
>>                     4.similar questions on security and performance
>>                     with Wei25519.-3 instead of Wei25519. If I
>>                     understand right, the former mapping is not
>>                     reversible, but could benefit from optimized code
>>                     with hardcoded domain parameters.
>>
>>                     5.ANSI X9.62-2005 was withdrawn in 2015 and is
>>                     behind a paywall, is this reference necessary?
>>
>>                     Göran
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>                     _______________________________________________
>>
>>                     COSE mailing list
>>
>>                     [e-mail]  <mailto:[e-mail]>
>>
>>                     https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/cose  <https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/cose>
>>
>>                 -- 
>>
>>                 email:[e-mail]  <mailto:[e-mail]>  | Skype: rstruik
>>
>>                 cell: [phone] | US: [phone]
>>
>>                 -->
>>
>>             -- 
>>
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>>
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>>
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>>
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>>
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