3 ms·
What I don't get is why the _default_ isn't made the safe choice, with the more performant option being available for when it actually matters?
by cwillu 10y ago
What I don't get is why the _default_ isn't made the safe choice, with the more performant option being available for when it actually matters?
- joosters 10y agoYou might be misinterpreting the code. Not all algorithms are vulnerable to this attack, so OpenSSL might be picking the faster version for those specific algorithms, and the constant time version for the others.
- zaroth 10y agoI think this would have been a much smarter way to code it! Default slow and safe, require an added flag for more performance. That would make it much harder to end up on the timing-sensitive / high performance implementation by mistake. Probably the trap was since the constant-time algorithm was the new code, "backward compatibility" would suggest adding a flag to select the new algorithm.