3 ms·
From article: The key here is to understand that by constant-time, we don’t mean that operations can’t take a varying amount of time. Instead, we mean that the
by moasda 5y ago
From article:
The key here is to understand that by constant-time, we don’t mean that operations can’t take a varying amount of time. Instead, we mean that the timing signal generated by our operations doesn’t leak any secret information.
- codeflo 5y agoIt’s very unfortunate that the crypto-community uses the term “constant-time” this way. Without further context, I thought of algorithmic complexity, where “constant time” means “bounded by a constant” — which doesn’t guarantee resistance to timing attacks at all! So if you’re looking for a crypto algorithm, make sure it’s constant-time in the relevant sense.
- dataflow 5y agoYeah I wish people would say uniform-time instead.
- moasda 5y agoExactly, that was my assumption, too. I was wondering how they could handle big numbers in algorithmic time complexity O(1).
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rurban 5y agolibc's use the better timingsafe_ prefix for this. Crypto folks should better follow the established standards.