Re: Comments on x942-05 draft

Eric Rescorla <ekr@rtfm.com> Mon, 22 February 1999 17:08 UTC

Message-Id: <199902221714.JAA26885@speedy.rtfm.com>
To: "Linn, John" <jlinn@securitydynamics.com>
cc: "'ietf-smime@imc.org'" <ietf-smime@imc.org>, "Kaliski, Burt" <bkaliski@securitydynamics.com>
Subject: Re: Comments on x942-05 draft
In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 19 Feb 1999 08:50:30 EST." <D104150098E6D111B7830000F8D90AE845A4B4@exna02.securitydynamics.com>
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Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 09:14:20 -0800
From: Eric Rescorla <ekr@rtfm.com>
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> Here's some analysis on the RC2 effective key issue, thanks to Burt Kaliski.
[...]
Clearly we do have to defend against the partition attack on effective
key lengths. 

As John suggests, I propose that we place the RC2 effective key 
length into the the suppPubInfo. However, this leaves us with
an unfortunate inconsistency, in that for some algorithms it's
the length and some it's the effective length. One solution
to this would be to revert to what Stephen Henson has termed
the X/8 strategy. I.e. make the effective and real lengths
the same for RC2. This is slightly more tasteful than having
a bunch of special case language.

Comments? I'd like to get this settled quickly.

-Ekr
[Eric Rescorla                                   ekr@rtfm.com]

Comments on x942-05 draft Linn, John
Re: Comments on x942-05 draft EKR
Re: Comments on x942-05 draft Russ Housley
Re: Comments on x942-05 draft EKR
RE: Comments on x942-05 draft Linn, John
RE: Comments on x942-05 draft Linn, John
Re: Comments on x942-05 draft Eric Rescorla
RE: Comments on x942-05 draft Russ Housley
Re: Comments on x942-05 draft Russ Housley
RE: Comments on x942-05 draft Russ Housley