Re: [TLS] security levels for TLS

[Mike <[e-mail]>]

>>> I think there is good reason to try to solve this problem
>>> in the TLS layer.  The alternative is to force every TLS-
>>> enabled application to solve it (and likely they won't
>>> solve it and be less secure).  Wouldn't it be ideal if an
>>> application could just say:
>>>
>>>      TLS::SetSecurityLevel (3);
>> No, it would not, because, I've now said several times, security is
>> not expressible via a single metric, making this a complete rathole.
> 
> Agreed.  SASL used to have a notion of "security strength factor" (SSF),
> and that was a disaster.
> 
> Basically, the best you could do is have an application choose a
> cryptographic profile by descriptive names like "strong" and "fast," but
> where the content of such profiles is subject to change over time, and
> perhaps even a local matter.  Today "strong" might mean AES-128 is OK,
> and tomorrow it might mean only AES-256 is OK, and the next day it might
> mean something else, and so on.
> 
> The easy answer is to give the application fewer choices, namely a
> choice of locally-configured profiles (see above).
> 
> In fact, I strongly urge TLS API developers to provide such a facility.

I'm confused -- that is exactly what TLS::SetSecurityLevel (3);
was intended to represent.  Perhaps if I had not used the number
3, but instead used SECURITY_LEVEL_STRONG this would have made
more sense to people?

Mike


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