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Re: [P1619-3] Algorithm Equivalancy

Hi Bob,

Thanks for your work in putting this together!

As Landon said, the ECC entry should be 521 instead of 512.  This is a common mistake, because 521 looks so much like a typo, that the computer scientist's brain almost automatically translates it to 512 without thinking.  However, 521 (or rather 2^521-1) happens to be a convenient Mersenne Prime that was all but too tempting to the ECC developers.  This has caused untold trouble to those who like nice powers of 2, but there you have it.

I personally don't like mixing the concepts of 'algorithms' (like AES), with modes of operation.  As I've said before, stating a cipher without a mode-of-operation, while useful to the marketing people, is not really useful to a developer or implementer.

I hope we don't have to include RC4.  The effective strength is well below the key size.  (NOTE: this is a stream cipher, going against the last note that states "This list does no include stream ciphers")

I also hope we don't need DES.  I could maybe see including 2 or 3 key TDES, but my preference is to remove these also.

The "effective key strength" of the HMAC section seems strange.  Why doesn't this just match the "generated number of bits"?  There's probably some context that's missing here

Cheers,
-Matt

On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 2:46 AM, Landon Curt Noll <p1619.3-mail@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 2009-Jan-10, at 23:11, Robert A. (Bob) Lockhart wrote:

The attached file contains a list of a majority of algorithms used in storage applications.  We will cover what we need to consider for the standard and how we should handle algorithms versus modes.


Bob,

The RSA Key composition values are in error.

Isn't largest ECC should be ECC-521 (not 512)?

I also recommend dropping the "Effective Key Strength" column as it contains some values that are in error, that are subject to debate (and do we need to debate that here?), and may give a misleading impression of Algorithm equivalency.

chongo () /\oo/\



--
Thanks!
-Matt

Matt Ball, IEEE P1619.x SISWG Chair
Cell: 303-717-2717
http://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewvball
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