Re: [TLS] Intdir last call review of draft-ietf-tls-md5-sha1-deprecate-04

[Ted Lemon <[e-mail]>]

FWIW my nit was simply that algorithms aren’t getting weaker: attacks are getting stronger. Sorry if I worded the suggested text badly. 

> On Nov 1, 2020, at 13:09, Benjamin Kaduk <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Hi Ted,
> 
> Thanks for the review, especially for thinking about the point that Éric
> requested.
> 
> I don't really agree with your nit, though, as there have been improved
> crypanalysis and correspondingly improved cryptographic attacks on both
> algorithms over time (SHA1 more recently than MD5).  Increased
> computational power to take advantage of those cryptographic weaknesses is
> certainly a factor in moving to deprecate the vulnerable algorithms, but it
> is not the only factor.
> 
> -Ben
> 
>> On Wed, Oct 28, 2020 at 08:56:13AM -0700, Ted Lemon via Datatracker wrote:
>> Reviewer: Ted Lemon
>> Review result: Ready with Nits
>> 
>> This document is ready for publication, with one minor nit, which is included
>> at the end.
>> 
>> Éric additionally made the following request:
>>  As those hash algorithms were 'cheap' for TLS, I would appreciate a review of
>>  the impact if those algorithms are deprecated in TLS 1.2.
>> 
>> I am not in a position to do any practical tests, but I will point out several
>> things. First, deprecating MD5 is not going to cause a performance problem
>> because it's slower than SHA1, so we really only need to worry about whether
>> deprecating SHA1 will cause a problem. This document only deprecates SHA1 for
>> use in digital signatures. It "does not deprecate SHA-1 in HMAC for record
>> protection." Given the way TLS uses digital signatures, this should not be a
>> serious concern. At worst case, SHA256 is about 24% slower than SHA1. Best case
>> (shorter text) it is less than 16% slower. It's reasonable to expect that in
>> common use in TLS, the texts being digested will be shorter, not longer.
>> Further, the bulk of the computational burden of TLS is not in the generation
>> of digests for digital signatures. Therefore it seems reasonable to expect that
>> the performance impact of this change is vastly overshadowed by one of the very
>> factors that motivates it: the increased speed of hash computation over time. 
>> Even assuming constant speed legacy hardware, the performance impact is not
>> sufficient to cause concern when considering it as part of the total system
>> that would be using TLS 1.2.
>> 
>> Nit:
>> 
>> In the abstract:
>>   The MD5 and SHA-1 hashing algorithms are steadily weakening in
>>   strength and their deprecation process should begin for their use in
>>   TLS 1.2 digital signatures.
>> 
>> Technically, the strength of these algorithms hasn't changed. What's changed is
>> that their strength is no longer sufficient to prevent realistic attacks. So it
>> might be better to say something like "The vulnerability of MD5 and SHA-1
>> algorithms to practical attacks is steadly increasing and ..."
>> 
>> 
>>