Re: [secdir] review of draft-ietf-dnsext-dnssec-gost-05

David McGrew <mcgrew@cisco.com> Fri, 08 January 2010 21:10 UTC

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From: David McGrew <mcgrew@cisco.com>
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Subject: Re: [secdir] review of draft-ietf-dnsext-dnssec-gost-05
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I also agree with the compelling reasons that Steve and Paul have  
articulated.

I'm confused about one point, though.  The IANA considerations section  
in draft-ietf-dnsext-dnssec-gost-06 asks for GOST R 34.10-2001 and  
GOST R 34.11-94 to be registered as OPTIONAL.  Was there some  
suggestion to make them mandatory?

David

On Jan 8, 2010, at 8:35 AM, Uri Blumenthal wrote:

> I am in full agreement with the arguments Paul and Steve have made.
>
> Keep GOST as MAY.
>
> Quoting Paul Hoffman <phoffman@imc.org>:
>> To take it one step further: a signing algorithm that is easily  
>> broken opens up a new attack vector. Imagine that all DNSSEC  
>> "client" implementations (resolvers) need to support two  
>> algorithms, A and B. If A and B are of actual equal strength, an  
>> attacker has an equal problem. However, if B is found to have  
>> weaknesses that allows an attacker to forge signatures, that  
>> attacker then can create a bogus chain to a trust anchor using B in  
>> the entire path.
>>
>> It is for this reason that DNSSEC does not, for example, require  
>> that resolvers MUST be able to validate RSA signatures with 256-bit  
>> keys. However, by saying that resolvers MUST be able to validate  
>> anything other than the widely-agreed-to algorithms, you are  
>> opening up such an attack.
>>
>> GOST signatures use a hash algorithm that has a known academic  
>> attack. Thus, even if the GOST asymmetric encryption algorithm is  
>> as strong as RSA with the size of keys that people are using, the  
>> overall signing algorithm may be weaker. This is *not* an argument  
>> that Russia should not use GOST: they have made their own security  
>> decisions based on the same knowledge that we have (and possibly  
>> more). It is, however, an argument against making everyone else be  
>> able to verify GOST signatures as if they were equivalent to other  
>> mandatory-to-implement signature algorithms.
>> _______________________________________________
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