Re: [secdir] secdir review of draft-mavrogiannopoulos-ssl-version3

[Nikos Mavrogiannopoulos <[e-mail]>]

On Mon, May 2, 2011 at 7:52 PM, Dan Harkins <[e-mail]> wrote:
>  Hello,
>  I have reviewed this document as part of the security directorate's
> ongoing effort to review all IETF documents being processed by the
> IESG.  These comments were written primarily for the benefit of the
> security area directors.  Document editors and WG chairs should treat
> these comments just like any other last call comments.

Hello and thank you for reviewing the document.

[...]
>  Trivial editorial changes to give normative behavior normative wording:
[applied]

>  Removal of wording that no longer applies in the current environment
>  (and was not really unique to the US anyway):
>   - section 5.6.3, remove note about US export law restricting RSA
>     moduli to 512 bits or less.
>   - Appendix D.1, remove mention of US export restrictions limiting
>     RSA keys used for encryption to 512 bits.

I think it is essential to the document the US export restrictions to be kept
as it is. My reasoning would be:
1. To keep the discussion in context, and answer to the question why the export
ciphersuites are defined?
2. To show that cryptography at that time (1998) was driven from political
decisions.

For this reason I suggest instead the following text to the foreword:
"The US export rules discussed in the document do not apply today
but are kept intact for to provide context for the
discussion of the EXPORT cipher-suites."

>  Trivial editorial change to conform to RFC structure
>   - make section 7 into section 8 and move Appendix F into a new
>     section 7 entitled "Security Considerations".

Although this is today the current format, it was not in 1998 and
this document is already widespread through copies such as
www.mozilla.org/projects/security/pki/nss/ssl/draft302.txt. For this
reason I'd like to keep the differences between the two documents
as minimal as possible.

best regards,
Nikos