3 ms·
They are baking the type of public key system (ECDSA) and a specific curve (Curve25519) right into the standard? So what happens if some sort of weakness is di
by upofadown 6y ago
They are baking the type of public key system (ECDSA) and a specific curve (Curve25519) right into the standard?
So what happens if some sort of weakness is discovered in one of both of them? The internet falls apart?
You need to define what is supposed to happen if your cryptography breaks.
- schanzen 6y agoSee 9.1. If ECDSA or Curve25519 are broken (e.g. because of quantum crypto), we can simply introduce a PKEY replacement (such as PKEY2) and migrate. EDIT: However, point well taken. This needs more space in the draft and is definitely a point to address.
- upofadown 6y agoOne perhaps obvious contingency is what to do if the key length has to get longer.
- goalieca 6y agoA weakness will not come in the form of "it's suddenly broken". It will be a slow decline of worsening performance. Even quantum computing will be moving forward with a gradual rate of growth in Qubits. At some point during this transition, it will break and they will have to transition. It will not be hard to create an new RFC for that task. It will be hard to replace all of the implementations in the field. We are getting better at this with our experiences in TLS but it is still somewhat painful. Crypto agility can be really nice but it can also be messy. Sometimes it's best to be opinionated and sometimes it's easier to just be flexible.