Re: [TLS] draft-sheffer-tls-bcp: DH recommendations

[Patrick Pelletier <[e-mail]>]

On 9/21/13 10:34 PM, Yaron Sheffer wrote:
> It's not "only" Java, it's Windows (Internet Explorer), too. See
> http://blog.ivanristic.com/2013/08/increasing-dhe-strength-on-apache.html,
> last paragraph.

Yes, that's one of the sources I've been using, but I guess I'm 
interpreting it differently than you are.  My reading is based on the 
last sentence of that last paragraph, "IE does not support DHE in 
combination with RSA, and will never negotiate a DHE suite, anyway."

So, my interpretation is that the 1024-bit limit only applies to DSS in 
IE.  Since IE doesn't support DHE_RSA, the 1024-bit limit doesn't matter 
there.  So yes, that means you can't actually use DHE_RSA with Internet 
Explorer (regardless of bit length), but the important point is that it 
doesn't hurt for the server to support DHE_RSA, since IE won't offer it. 
  This is in contrast to the Java situation, where Java will offer 
DHE_RSA, the server will choose it, and then Java will bail because it 
doesn't support the DH length.  This results in a failed handshake, 
while the Windows situation doesn't.

--Patrick