Re: [TLS] security levels for TLS

[Mike <[e-mail]>]

>>> Confusing and/or giving users false senses of security are definitely
>>> negative.
>> Actually I think the latter sentence describes the current situation!
> 
> How so? Nothing at all stops you from putting any indicator you
> like in your code. Why does IETF have to standardize it?

I think there is some mis-communication going on.  I have never
even mentioned the IETF standardizing an "indicator" of security
level.  Someone else may have, but I reject that idea as well.

All I've proposed is that the client send a few extra bytes of
information specifying the sizes of keys/parameters that are
not defined by the cipher suites.  Every client is free to
determine what it thinks is acceptable in this regard.  There
would be no "standard profiles" or even "suggested profiles"
since over time they would become outdated.

Here is a simple code example of what I envision:

    TlsSecurityProfile profile_Generic;
    TlsSecurityProfile profile_Strong;

    profile_Generic.SetRSAKeyLength (1024, 900);  // desired, minimum
    profile_Generic.SetDSAKeyLength (1024, 900);
    profile_Generic.SetDHParameterSize (1024, 1000);

    profile_Strong.SetRSAKeyLength (2048, 2000);
    profile_Strong.SetDSAKeyLength (2048, 2000);
    profile_Strong.SetDHParameterSize (1536, 1536);

    ConnectTLS ("www.amazon.com:443", profile_Generic);
    ConnectTLS ("www.mybank.com:443", profile_Strong);

Currently TLS cannot totally support this interface, but with the
extension I proposed, it could.

Mike


_______________________________________________
TLS mailing list
[e-mail]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/tls