Re: [openpgp] Weird OIDs in the 4880bis draft

[Peter Gutmann <[e-mail]>]

Werner Koch writes:

>Actually rfc6637 allows the specification of curves using arbitrary OIDs.
>FWIW:

Yup, and the original from 2013 was:

-- Snip --

>For completeness, Crypto++ has a factory-like method that serves curves. The
>curves are sorted by OID in the function, so Crypto++ would need an OID for
>ed25519.

  { 1 3 6 1 4 1 3029 1 5 1 } ed209^H^H5519

You have been OIDed.  Go forth and encrypt.

-- Snip --

I picked a bit of random unused space, which in any case was for Ed25519 and
not Curve25519, because there was nothing else available at the time and
people needed something to play with.  It was never intended to be a
permanent, standards-track value, it was something I made up (but from a space
where it was guaranteed not to clash with anything) to help out folks who
needed an OID.  Until someone pointed me at the RFC I had no idea it was still
in use.

We now have standard OIDs for this, they're in RFC 8410.  If there are
implementations out there that use the made-up value then the RFC can include
a note to say that for historical purposes implementations may encounter keys
with the ... 1 5 1 OID, but new keys should use the standard OID.

Peter.