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Re: Triple DES

1993-05-21 12:51:00
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Here're my more refined thoughts based on what I've read on this topic.

1. Without question, EDE is to be preferred over EEE.  The remnants from
   the "before DES was shown not to be a group," and hence the origin of
   EDE, seem to be more widely understood and even in some use.  I can see
   no benefit for doing EEE over EDE.

2. EDE should be treated as a new cipher, in cookbook mode as Steve Kent
   mentions, and CBC should be performed on the output of the whole thing.
   To perform DES-CBC/encrypt followed by DES-CBC/decrypt followed by
   DES-CBC/encrypt, which is what I think Carl is suggesting, does not offer
   any proven benefit (and only marginal skeptical benefit) and is certainly
   incompatible with any systems which may exist for doing EDE.  Doing this
   strange variant of CBC will probably raise more doubts than offer
   reassurances.

3. Encrypted IVs.  I agree that they cannot hurt, security-wise, but do not
   feel that they contribute any added security except in the case where
   no signature is included and hence the first block may be manipulated if
   known to the attacker.  To say that they help substantially in attacking
   the first block implies that DES is vulnerable to known pt attacks and
   my response would be to jump ship.  Furthermore, non-encrypted IVs are
   in conformance with PEM as it stands now.

4. 2 vs 3 keys.  This one is the real toss up.  While I feel comfortable with
   2 keys security-wise, I do not see why we need to cripple ourselves by not
   going the full 3 key route unless there're good compatibility reasons.
   However, all indications are that the existing systems which use 2 keys
   will not be used for PEM so we free to play this one as we wish.  I am
   tempted then to go for 3 keys.

5. On the identifier -- I agree with the proposals so far as they clearly
   identify EDE and 3 keys.  (Although the 3 looks out of place!  :-)

6. On RSAREF interfaces -- I don't think that's an important issue worth
   occupying bandwidth on this list.

 -Ray
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