ietf-smime
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Re: Way Forward

2000-08-03 14:57:43

My two cents:  I think it's likely that we'll switch to AES when it's 
finalized, why
don't we wait to change until then?  Then we only have to change once.

Cheers,

spt

Russ Housley wrote:

At the face-to-face meeting today, we had a fair amount of discussion about
the best way to proceed.  This message states each of the issues and the
proposed way forward.  This message is intended to give everyone an
opportunity to provide their input, even if they were unable to attend the
meeting.

RFC 2630 Interoperability Testing

Issue:  Two implementations have been tested for EnvelopedData and
SignedData.  These two data structures are required to implement S/MIME, so
this is not surprising.  RFC 2630 includes other data structure that are
MUST implement(EncryptedData, DigestedData, and AuthenticatedData).  We do
not have two implementations for these data structures.

Proposed way forward:  Change the implementation requirements so that:
        - EnvelopedData and SignedData MUST be implemented; and
        - EncryptedData, DigestedData, and AuthenticatedData MAY be 
implemented.

Mandatory To Implement Algorithms

Issue:  Since the RSA patent is about to expire, Blake Ramsdell suggested
that the RSA algorithm become the mandatory to implement algorithm for key
management and signature.  It was pointed out that the current RSA key
management (PKCS#1 v1.5) has a known vulnerability, so the OAEP technique
should be employed instead.  While we were discussing algorithms, it was
suggested that AES should be the mandatory to implement symmetric cipher
instead of Triple-DES.  About half of the people thought that this was a
good idea.  The other half was concerned that the AES has not been
published yet.

Proposed way forward:  Change the mandatory to implement algorithm set to:
        One-way Hash:   SHA-1 (no change)
        Signature:      Both DSA and RSA (PKCS#1 v1.5)
        Key Mgmt:       RSA (OAEP)
        Eencryption:    Triple-DES in CBC mode

All comments on either of these proposals is most welcome.

Russ


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