Re: [TLS] Drafts for batch signing and PKCS#1 v1.5

[Ben Schwartz <[e-mail]>]

On Wed, Jul 31, 2019 at 12:12 AM David Benjamin <[e-mail]>
wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 30, 2019 at 11:59 PM Martin Thomson <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Jul 31, 2019, at 13:54, Ben Schwartz wrote:
>> > The batch signing idea is very cool. I'm not entirely sure I understand
>> > the intended use case, though. The intro suggests that this motivated
>> > by DoS defense, but presumably an attacker who controls their own TLS
>> > client stack could simply omit support for these signature schemes. Do
>> > you envision a future where servers can safely omit support for all the
>> > non-batch signature schemes? Or are you thinking of attackers who don't
>> > control the TLS client stack?
>>
>> The usual trick when under duress is to attempt to process some requests,
>> and lowering the cost of handling those requests enables higher tolerance
>> to attack and better continuity of service.  A server might choose not to
>> serve clients that don't offer batching if it is stressed.
>>
>
> Yup. The signing cost of a batch-capable client is effectively zero. (I
> expect it's already common to preferentially serve ECDSA-capable clients
> when under load.) Also, if many clients implement this, serving load under
> normal operation goes down, which is also valuable..
>

OK.  I think it would be good to clarify the motivation in the intro.  (For
me, defending against DDoS attackers who don't control the TLS client stack
is also a compelling use case.)

>
>
>> > Minor question: in the tree diagrams, m2 goes to t04. Is there any
>> > reason it couldn't go directly to t12? That would seem more natural to
>> > me.
>>
>> The blinding process is explained in Section 4.3.
>>
>
> I think Ben is asking why the tree doesn't put m2 a level higher (like CT
> does), instead of adding the padding nodes. That would work too. I chose
> this one because I found it more straightforward, and it doesn't
> particularly matter. Also it's what Roughtime did and I cribbed the
> construction from Roughtime. :-)
>

OK, thanks for the explanation.  My main reason to favor the CT-style tree
structure is that it avoids load spikes.  In this structure, incrementally
processing message mk requires k hashes when k is a power of 2, as opposed
to O(1) hashes for each message in a CT-style tree.

In principle, the signer could pick any tree strategy as long as it
> produced valid paths for each message. But I think it's probably better for
> the draft to be opinionated, rather than risk implementers mess things up.
>

A SHOULD-strength recommendation for a particular approach seems fine, but
I think sophisticated implementers might want to use different structures
depending on their needs.

David
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