Re: How to Calculate Signatures?

Ben Laurie <ben@algroup.co.uk> Sun, 03 April 2005 19:04 UTC

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Date: Sun, 03 Apr 2005 19:50:49 +0100
From: Ben Laurie <ben@algroup.co.uk>
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To: Konrad Rosenbaum <konrad@silmor.de>
Cc: ietf-openpgp@imc.org
Subject: Re: How to Calculate Signatures?
References: <20050402201614.31E9157EE9@finney.org> <425005AE.5030105@algroup.co.uk> <42501CD7.4070005@algroup.co.uk> <200504031948.22079@zaphod.konrad.silmor.de>
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Konrad Rosenbaum wrote:
> On Sunday 03 April 2005 18:41, Ben Laurie wrote:
> 
>>Oh, yes. This left me with an unresolved issue: how does one use
>>SHA{256,384,512} with DSA (which requires a 160 bit hash).
> 
> 
> Simple: you don't. DSA was designed to be used with SHA-1, which is 160 bit. 
> Since SHA-1 is theoretically broken (practically will probably follow in a 
> few months) one should see what the NIST makes of it. Supplanting a broken 
> hash with another hash doesn't make much sense with DSA, since it does not 
> contain the ID of the hash (as PKCS#1 does for RSA) - so any attacker could 
> find a collission with the broken hash and then simply change the hash ID 
> in the signature packet.

The hash does include the ID of the hash, and hence the signature does.

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