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Re: [TLS] draft on new TLS key exchange

Geoffrey Keating <geoffk@geoffk.org> Wed, 05 October 2011 21:06 UTC

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To: Dan Harkins <dharkins@lounge.org>
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From: Geoffrey Keating <geoffk@geoffk.org>
Date: Wed, 05 Oct 2011 14:09:19 -0700
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Cc: tls@ietf.org, dhalasz@intwineenergy.com
Subject: Re: [TLS] draft on new TLS key exchange
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"Dan Harkins" <dharkins@lounge.org> writes:

>          http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-harkins-tls-pwd-00
> 
>   Please take a look. The authors solicit comments.

It would be helpful to have a comparison between this proposal and
RFC5054, since both protocols appear to have the same aim ("secure
authentication using only a simple, low-entropy, password").


Some features of RFC5054 I noticed that could be used to improve this
draft are:

- RFC5054 requires that the server store only the 'verifier', while
  this protocol appears to require storing the plaintext password.
  There doesn't seem to be any discussion on the risks of storing the
  plaintext password or any mitigations (for example, using a salted
  hash of the password instead of the password directly).

- RFC5054 already specifies an extension for the user name.  I would
  suggest using the same extension for this protocol rather than
  creating a new one.

- RFC5054 has test vectors, this draft doesn't.

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