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Re: [TLS] Curve25519 in TLS

Rob Stradling <rob.stradling@comodo.com> Thu, 12 September 2013 20:57 UTC

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Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2013 21:57:07 +0100
From: Rob Stradling <rob.stradling@comodo.com>
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To: Simon Josefsson <simon@josefsson.org>
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Cc: Patrick Pelletier <code@funwithsoftware.org>, "tls@ietf.org" <tls@ietf.org>
Subject: Re: [TLS] Curve25519 in TLS
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On 12/09/13 21:41, Simon Josefsson wrote:
<snip>
>>> Umm, the brainpool curves are available.
>>
>> Yes, and the brainpool curves are also available for key exchange.
>>
>> So why bother making curve25519 available for key exchange?
>
> For performance reasons?  It is more efficient.

So then...

>>> Also, I don't get why performance would be less critical than that of
>> ECDHE. In a full handshake, you do both an ECDSA signature and the
>> ECDHE operations. Why would one matter while the other does not?

...it sounds like it does make sense, for performance reasons, to allow 
Curve25519 (or Ed25519, presumably) to be used for keys in certs too.

-- 
Rob Stradling
Senior Research & Development Scientist
COMODO - Creating Trust Online

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