Re: [kitten] AD sponsoring draft-hansen-scram-sha256

[Peter Saint-Andre - &yet <[e-mail]>]

On 2/11/15 6:24 PM, Stephen Farrell wrote:
>
> Hiya,
>
> I've been asked to AD sponsor draft-hansen-scram-sha256 [1] as it's
> needed for some work in http-auth but doesn't quite fit with any
> current WG. I plan to start an IETF LC for that shortly, but please
> do let me know if there are any issues.
>
> This was previously discussed on the kitten WG list, so (with
> the WG chairs' permission) I'd ask that you send any comments
> there if you've any before I start the IETF LC. (Reply-to is
> set to the kitten WG list.)

This is a helpful document. Herewith a few comments.

§2

    For the SCRAM-SHA-256/SCRAM-SHA-256-PLUS SASL mechanisms, servers
    SHOULD announce a hash iteration-count of at least 4096.

Because (per RFC 5082) it is mandatory for the server to announce a hash 
iteration-count, I'm wondering if that could be better expressed as:

    For the SCRAM-SHA-256 and SCRAM-SHA-256-PLUS SASL mechanisms, the
    hash iteration-count announced by a server SHOULD be at least 4096.

§3

It might be helpful here (or in the introduction) to describe why we 
need these mechanisms, i.e., presumably they might have stronger 
security properties or greater predicted longevity than the SCRAM 
mechanisms based on SHA-1.

Nits:

§1

mechanism are defined -> mechanisms are defined

§4

I doubt that we need RFC 2119 language in the form.

Peter