Re: [IPsec] IPsec Digest, Vol 123, Issue 21

[Yoav Nir <[e-mail]>]

On Aug 16, 2014, at 12:48 PM, Les Leposo <[e-mail]> wrote:

> Hi
> 
> some points of discussion below.
> 
>> A scheme like this would drain the battery on top of the current
>> re-establishing draining, that already prevents me from using an
>> always-on profile - my iphone won't last for 4 hours.
>> 
>> Perhaps we should look at other types of puzzles that do not depend on
>> raw CPU power?
> Great question.
> 
> imho, if the hash calculations (and ike) are a big enough culprits, then perhaps the mobile SoC folks should consider bringing onboard IP that  accelerates/offloads the hash calculations (and other aspects of ike) to more energy efficient component/sub-system?

That’s just an arms race. If phones get specialized hardware that can do 2^25 hashes in a second, the attackers can get such hardware too, and we’ll have to turn up the difficulty to 25 bits. Older hardware (like older phones and computers) will suffer.

Yoav