Re: [saag] AD review of draft-iab-crypto-alg-agility-06

["Paul Hoffman" <[e-mail]>]

On 17 Jul 2015, at 10:18, Stephen Farrell wrote:

> intro, 3rd para: are we saying that agility is achieved when a
> protocol (specification) can easliy migrate from one suite to a
> better one, or when a deployment can easily migrate? The current
> text implies the former, but I'm not sure if we'd be better off
> aiming more for the latter.

+1

> 2.1: "Algorithm identifiers, on the other hand, impose a burden on
> implementations by forcing a determination at run-time regarding
> which algorithm combinations are acceptable." Here you mean IPsec
> style or chinese menu style alg ids. Do we need to make sure that
> alg id and suite id are used consistently throughout as one or the
> other but not both, and do we need a new term that means either? (I
> find this clear enough, but I'm not sure if it might confuse some
> readers.)

This is not necessarily about "pick one from each column". For example, 
an S/MIME implementation has to decide whether to accept a particular 
algorithm for authentication if it has a policy "always strong crypto".

>
> 2.3: "a mechanism is needed to determine whether the new algorithm
> has been deployed" I think that's overstated, maybe
> s/needed/desirable/ would be better?  (maybe with a bit more
> wordsmithing)

+1. "mechanism" is overstated (although "policy" is usually a mess...).

>
> 2.4: The SHOULD for integrity only applies when the negotiation is
> done over the network, but some "selection" methods might not need
> protocol integrity mechanisms. Maybe drop "selection" there?
>
> 2.4: Maybe join paras 2 and 3, para 2 alone reads a little oddly
>
> 2.9: I'm not really a fan of blessing weaker algs for OS, but I lost
> that argument before. I wonder if we would get consensus if this
> said that weak algs are better than no encryption but still MUST be
> deprecated as soon as feasible?
>
> 3.1, 1st para: I think this could do with some more editing.
>
> 3.2: "some people say" is a bit too weasel-wordy

Disagree. We don't have solid statements from enough believable parties 
here.

>
> 3.2: the second para here is repetition, I think you could delete
> all or almost all of that
>
> 4: "eliminate the cruft" - yes, I like that:-)
>
> general: there are some typos throughout, another pass to fix those
> would be good but I didn't have time to note them all sorry

--Paul Hoffman