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> I'm not from the crypto community, but putting Skein into FreeBSD seems a very strange choice, especially because it looks to be motivated by the "Schneier" b

> I'm not from the crypto community, but putting Skein into FreeBSD seems a very strange choice, especially because it looks to be motivated by the "Schneier" brand. Apart from SHA-3 (which is already there), BLAKE2 would have been a better alternative. This does reek a bit of the "Schneier Brand", but for what it's worth, Bruce hasn't developed horrible cryptographic primitives: Block ciphers: Blowfish (bcrypt is based on the expensive Blowfish key schedule), Twofish (an AES finalist), Threefish (based on Skein). Stream ciphers: Solitaire (a classical algorithm with playing cards), Helix (authenticated stream cipher), Phelix (authenticated stream cipher submitted to ECRYPT) Random number generators: Yarrow (inital CSPRNG), Fortuna (CSPRNG replacing Yarrow- FreeBSD and OS X/iOS /dev/random) Generic hashing algorithms: Skein (a SHA-3 finalist) What I find interesting, is the monocultures created in cryptography. You have the NSA/NIST monoculture (3DES, AES, SHA-1, SHA-2, SHA-3), the Schneier monoculture (Blowfish/bcrypt, Fortuna, Skein) and the Berstein monoculture (Poly1305, Curve25519, ChaCha20). It seems to me that if you're against the NIST standards and NSA designs, then you're likely in the Schneier or Berstein monocultures, with possibly some overlap. What bothers be about being anti-NIST or anti-NSA, is forgetting that we have some great algorithms that already exist, such as AES and SHA-2, that are well-studied, well-implemented, and near ubiquitous. I'm not saying we should just stick with those primitives, and I'm glad cryptographers are thinking of more, such as BLAKE2 and Argon2. So, I guess this whole discussion boils down to "why?". Why is Skein being added to FreeBSD? What is the need? Is the package manager moving to file integrity with Skein? Is ZFS? Some other need? Or is this getting added, because of the Schneier monoculture, and the need to be "anti-NIST/NSA"? I tend to believe its the latter.

tptacek 10y ago
AES and SHA-3 were the products of highly-regarded contests, and DES was invented by IBM, so the NSA/NIST monoculture idea might need a re-think.
- atoponce 10y ago
  Yeah. I'm not claiming they invented AES nor SHA-3. The monoculture stems from government ways of thinking that only NIST approved standards can be used. If it doesn't have the NIST stamp of approval, it can't be deployed in production.
  - pvg 10y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryption_Standard_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryption_Standard_p... Just as one example. A years-long open submission and selection process. In what way do you feel that results in a 'monoculture'? How would it be done differently and better?
    - atoponce 10y ago
      As I explained, it's a monoculture in that there are organizations, mostly U.S. government bodies, that will not deploy cryptographic primitives unless it has been standardized by NIST. This means strictly sticking with 3DES, AES, SHA-1, SHA-2, and SHA-3. For random number generation, this means CTR_DRBG, HMAC_DRBG, and Hash_DRBG. For password hashing, it's md5crypt, sha256crypt, and sha512crypt. It goes on and on. I used to work as a contractor for the Dept. of V.A. and am familiar with the red-tape required to implement libraries in code, push patches to production, rely on 3rd-party libraries, etc. It's a nightmare. As an admin, I couldn't certify a hard drive was digitally wiped unless it did the DoD 3-pass, even though I'm confident a single pass of zeros is sufficient. I couldn't use my LUKS encrypted laptop on premesis, because the encryption process hadn't been vetted by a committee. I couldn't deploy bcrypt as the password hash for authentication. So, my reference to "NIST/NSA monoculture", is the bullheaded requirement that only NIST-approved algorithms can be use, after committees and approval. It's a monoculture, because at least for the V.A., only government standardized algorithms are allowed.
      - pvg 10y ago
        That sounds like a pain, on the other hand, I don't think it really matches any reasonable definition of 'monoculture'. And I'd guess I'm in a majority that's ok with the Department of VA (or of Agriculture or Housing and Urban Development, etc) not inventing their own crypto practices and standards.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    So, I agree that NIST has been a force for evil in the world, in the same sense that the IETF has. If that's the core point you're trying to make, we're on the same page. I just don't think "monoculture" is the reason why. I think all crypto standards organizations are problematic.

tptacek 10y ago

AES and SHA-3 were the products of highly-regarded contests, and DES was invented by IBM, so the NSA/NIST monoculture idea might need a re-think.

atoponce 10y ago
Yeah. I'm not claiming they invented AES nor SHA-3. The monoculture stems from government ways of thinking that only NIST approved standards can be used. If it doesn't have the NIST stamp of approval, it can't be deployed in production.
- pvg 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryption_Standard_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryption_Standard_p... Just as one example. A years-long open submission and selection process. In what way do you feel that results in a 'monoculture'? How would it be done differently and better?
  - atoponce 10y ago
    As I explained, it's a monoculture in that there are organizations, mostly U.S. government bodies, that will not deploy cryptographic primitives unless it has been standardized by NIST. This means strictly sticking with 3DES, AES, SHA-1, SHA-2, and SHA-3. For random number generation, this means CTR_DRBG, HMAC_DRBG, and Hash_DRBG. For password hashing, it's md5crypt, sha256crypt, and sha512crypt. It goes on and on. I used to work as a contractor for the Dept. of V.A. and am familiar with the red-tape required to implement libraries in code, push patches to production, rely on 3rd-party libraries, etc. It's a nightmare. As an admin, I couldn't certify a hard drive was digitally wiped unless it did the DoD 3-pass, even though I'm confident a single pass of zeros is sufficient. I couldn't use my LUKS encrypted laptop on premesis, because the encryption process hadn't been vetted by a committee. I couldn't deploy bcrypt as the password hash for authentication. So, my reference to "NIST/NSA monoculture", is the bullheaded requirement that only NIST-approved algorithms can be use, after committees and approval. It's a monoculture, because at least for the V.A., only government standardized algorithms are allowed.
    - pvg 10y ago
      That sounds like a pain, on the other hand, I don't think it really matches any reasonable definition of 'monoculture'. And I'd guess I'm in a majority that's ok with the Department of VA (or of Agriculture or Housing and Urban Development, etc) not inventing their own crypto practices and standards.
- tptacek 10y ago
  So, I agree that NIST has been a force for evil in the world, in the same sense that the IETF has. If that's the core point you're trying to make, we're on the same page. I just don't think "monoculture" is the reason why. I think all crypto standards organizations are problematic.