Re: [saag] SHA-1 to SHA-n transition

Peter Gutmann <pgut001@cs.auckland.ac.nz> Tue, 03 March 2009 15:46 UTC

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From: Peter Gutmann <pgut001@cs.auckland.ac.nz>
To: ekr@networkresonance.com, Nicolas.Williams@sun.com
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Date: Wed, 04 Mar 2009 04:46:42 +1300
Cc: mouse@Rodents-Montreal.ORG, saag@ietf.org
Subject: Re: [saag] SHA-1 to SHA-n transition
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Eric Rescorla <ekr@networkresonance.com> writes:

>"We must do something. This is something. We must do this."

So you've got the choice between the Polician's Fallacy (the above) and
psychosis ("PKI has been failing for 30 years [0], let's try more of it in the
hope that it suddenly works this time").

I think we need psychiatrists for this more than we need security geeks.

(I don't know the answer either, but admitting you have a problem with your
current approach is always the first step to recovery).

Peter.

[0] Or 20 years if you measure your epoch from X.509 rather than Kohnfelder.