Re: [TLS] Would this fix RC4 again? (was Re: Encrypt-then-MAC again (was Re: padding bug))

[Nikos Mavrogiannopoulos <[e-mail]>]

On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 5:15 AM, Michael D'Errico <[e-mail]> wrote:

>> The above draft does:
>> 1. prevent padding oracle attacks
>> 2. hide the length of the plaintext
>> What you propose there is having the plaintext appear and finish in an
>> unpredictable position. That's an interesting approach, not handled by
>> the draft above.
>>
>> In simple terms you're asking for more bells and whistles :)
> If I recall correctly from DJB's paper, the problem with RC4 is bias in
> the first 256 or so bytes of the key stream.  Would it be possible to
> "fix" RC4 using this extension?  Simply insert a random amount (at
> least 256 bytes) of pseudo-random padding at the beginning of the first
> record sent using an RC4 cipher suite?

Kenny answered on the question. However, even if it would solve it,
would it really be worth it to make hacks to save RC4?

regards,
Nikos