Re: [Curdle] Éric Vyncke's Discuss on draft-ietf-curdle-ssh-curves-10: (with DISCUSS and COMMENT)

["Mark D. Baushke" <[e-mail]>]

Hi Eric,

My comments are in-line. Look for MDB:

Éric Vyncke via Datatracker <[e-mail]> writes:

> Éric Vyncke has entered the following ballot position for
> draft-ietf-curdle-ssh-curves-10: Discuss
>
> When responding, please keep the subject line intact and reply to all
> email addresses included in the To and CC lines. (Feel free to cut this
> introductory paragraph, however.)
>
>
> Please refer to https://www.ietf.org/blog/discuss-criteria-iesg-review/
> for more information about IESG DISCUSS and COMMENT positions.
>
>
> The document, along with other ballot positions, can be found here:
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-curdle-ssh-curves/
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> DISCUSS:
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Thank you for the hard work put into this  document.

MDB: Thank you for taking the time to review it and provide actionable
comments.

> Please note that I second Mirja's discuss about the 'copying' text.

I understand the issue. I have no problems with removing that text, but
I am not the sole author of the document and did not add it in the first
place.

> And, please find below an easy-to-fix DISCUSS and some COMMENTs.
>
> Regards,
>
> -éric
>
> == DISCUSS ==
>
> -- Abstract --
>
> For a standard track document, I find it weird to write 'conventions' rather
> than specification. Easy to fix.

MDB: Okay. The abstract now reads:

        This document describes the specification for using Curve25519
        and Curve448 key exchange methods in the Secure Shell (SSH)
        protocol.

>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> COMMENT:
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> == COMMENTS ==
>
> -- Section 1 --
> " At the time of writing this specification" will look strange in a couple of
> years, please state 2019.

MDB:

This paragraph hs been rerwritten as

        This document provide Curve25519 as the preferred choice, but
        suggests that the Curve448 is implemented to provide more than
        128 bits of security strength should that become a requirement.

>
> -- Section 3 --

> I am not a SSH expert, but, can you add a reference to X25519 (in RFC
> 7748?) if not obvious for SSH experts ?

I am not sure I understand what you want changed. The text here:

   Key-agreement schemes "curve25519-sha256" and "curve448-sha512"
   perform the Diffie-Hellman protocol using the functions X25519 and
   X448, respectively. Implementations SHOULD compute these functions
   using the algorithms described in [RFC7748].

seems pretty clear to me that X25519 and X448 are described in RFC7748.
Did you need to have me change '... described in [RFC7748].' to read
'... described in section 5 of [RFC7748].'

Or, something else?

> == NITS ==
>
> -- Section 1 --
> s/This document provide Curve25519/This document provides Curve25519/

Fixed.

> s/Curve25519 has been/Curve25519 have been/

The paragraph containing that phrase has been removed from the document
entirely.

> From now on, I am stopping to review for nits, typos and grammar
> errors. Please run a spell checker.

I have used a spell checker.

ther than proper names, code point names, and abbreviaions, the only the
word

    Acknowledgements (with two e charcters)
    
vs

    Acknowledgments (with one e)

is flagged. The former is favored outside of the US and Canada while the
latter is favored inside. As the primary co-author, Aris Adamantiadis, I
have no problem using the word favored outside of the United States.

If this is an issue, the IETF publishers may change the spelling.

	-- Mark