Re: [TLS] Pull Request: Removing the AEAD explicit IV

[Watson Ladd <[e-mail]>]

On Wed, Mar 18, 2015 at 9:24 PM, Colm MacCárthaigh <[e-mail]> wrote:
> Why would the extension break?

Because it currently supports the TLS 1.2 record layer and AEAD mode,
not the now different TLS 1.3 one. I confirmed this would be a minor
issue with the author yesterday.  Sure, we can say that for any
implementation, and this hasn't yet made it into the wild yet, but now
both the kernel and userland sides need changes for TLS 1.3. Add in
some release cycles and LTS releases, and you get some more sites that
will not upgrade for a long time. It's not the only example: I've
heard rumors that some implementations do the record layer in more
unusual ways, while having the handshake in more softwarelike things.

I'm not claiming this is a particularly big nit, rather something that
tells me to lean on the conservative side when changing things related
to the record layer as compared to the handshake.

Sincerely,
Watson Ladd
>
> On Wed, Mar 18, 2015 at 9:21 PM, Watson Ladd <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> I'm afraid that by radically changing the record layer we may be
>> working ourselves into a corner. If we're going to make a change this
>> radical, why not make equally radical changes to simplify the protocol
>> further if that's possible? I'm also not sure what we're supposed to
>> be gaining from this change: while it's true that we don't need to
>> send the explicit nonce, I don't know that we are losing anything from
>> having it. Yes, I know the ChaCha draft does it a seemingly more
>> sensible way, but the last thing we need is to further increase the
>> codesize of TLS implementations.
>>
>> I do know that a recently implemented extension to FreeBSD won't work
>> anymore without some changes. (see
>> http://2015.asiabsdcon.org/timetable.html.en#P7A for an abstract)
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> Watson Ladd
>
>
>
> --
> Colm



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