Subject: Re: [TLS] draft-sheffer-tls-bcp: DH recommendations

From: Peter Gutmann <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2013 08:50:05 +0000

Yaron Sheffer <[email-masked]> writes:

>There are multiple issues with MODP DH in TLS (performance is just one of
>them). So I'd like to recommend EC DHE instead - which makes this discussion
>moot.

There are even more issues with ECC, namely their brittleness, paranoia
(whether justified or not) about NSA meddling, and patent issues.  DH is
simple in comparison.

Peter.

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From: Yaron Sheffer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2013 12:59:08 +0300

Hi Peter,

I think we've been through all these arguments (on both sides of the 
issue) over the last week, with the exception of "ECC brittleness". Can 
you please clarify what you mean by that?

Thanks,
	Yaron

On 09/19/2013 11:50 AM, Peter Gutmann wrote:
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>

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From: "Michael Ströder" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2013 12:17:55 +0200

On Thu, 19 Sep 2013 08:50:05 +0000 Peter Gutmann <[email-masked]>
wrote
> (whether justified or not) about NSA meddling, and patent issues.  DH is

I tend to concur with Peter here.

Especially if only the limited param length of MODP DH in current
implementations rules out its recommendation in the draft.

Ciao, Michael.

---

From: Yaron Sheffer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2013 13:33:25 +0300

I'm afraid you're ignoring facts here. Both Chrome and Firefox on my 
machine connect to Google using ECDHE by default. Together they make up 
36% of the browser market share [1]. And for both of them, as opposed to 
IE, people tend to use the latest browser versions. To put it bluntly, 
people who are still using IE8 are not the target audience for this draft.

So client-side support, at least, is not an issue.

Thanks,
	Yaron

[1] 
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/08/01/ie9-falls-below-10-market-share-firefox-hits-50-month-low-and-chrome-again-gains-the-most/