ietf-smime
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RE: I-D ACTION:draft-ietf-smime-3851bis-04.txt

2008-08-07 13:08:18

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Hoffman [mailto:phoffman(_at_)imc(_dot_)org] 
Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2008 11:07 AM
To: Jim Schaad; 'Sean P. Turner'; 'Blake Ramsdell'
Cc: ietf-smime(_at_)imc(_dot_)org
Subject: RE: I-D ACTION:draft-ietf-smime-3851bis-04.txt

At 7:44 PM +1000 8/6/08, Jim Schaad wrote:
 > -----Original Message-----
 From: Paul Hoffman [mailto:phoffman(_at_)imc(_dot_)org]
 Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2008 8:28 AM
 To: Jim Schaad; Sean P. Turner; 'Blake Ramsdell'
 Cc: ietf-smime(_at_)imc(_dot_)org
 Subject: RE: I-D ACTION:draft-ietf-smime-3851bis-04.txt

 At 2:17 PM +0100 7/28/08, Jim Schaad wrote:
 >Comments on the draft:
 >
 >1.  We are not currently making any support statements for DSA w/ 
the
 >SHA-256 hash algorithms.  Should we be doing so?

 Yes and no. Yes in the sense that US government users who use DSA
 > will want DSA-with-SHA-256. No in the sense that there is no
 appropriate level of standards support that makes sense: 
SHOULD is  
too strong, given current deployments.

I can deal with a SHOULD+ for this

In retrospect, I agree with Jim and I'm happy with SHOULD+ for
DSA-with-SHA-256 for both sending and receiving. It's not that 
big of a change from 3851.

I am perfectly willing to use a non standards word here.  For 
example, 
permitted.  I thought I saw enough consensus from the list that keys 
over this size will have either real-estate constraints or 
performance 
constraints.  Either would be covered by referring to a security 
considerations discussion to this effect.  I don't want to 
say or imply 
that keys longer than 4096 are not to be handled.

Proposed wording:

Receiving agents that validate signatures need to be cautious 
of CPU usage when validating signatures larger than those 
mandated in this specification. An attacker can send very 
large, bogus signatures in order to swamp the CPU of the 
receiving party. Receiving parties that verify large 
signatures are advised to have some sort of resource 
management system to prevent such an attack.

Is this in addition to or to replace the para that starts "Larger keys are
not" in 3851bis Sec 5?

spt