Subject: RE: SRP and SM2

From: "Raif S. Naffah" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 22:23:13 +1000

At 03:38 PM 4/22/01 -0700, Paul Leach wrote:
> >
> > As noted in section 7.4 of the SM2 draft, the "subsequent
> > authentication" described in RFC 2831 maps nicely on to the
> > SM2 exchange.  I suggest removing section 2.2 of RFC 2831 in
> > favour of SM2.
>
>Since there are many existing implementations of RFC 2831, why not
>rewrite SM2 to reuse the fast reconnect mechanism of RFC 2831 instead of
>telling everyone to drop it and switch to a different mechanism.

because SM2 is intended to be independent of any specific underlying 
mechanism.  while i can see how the fast reconnect mechanism of 2831 can be 
mapped to the SM2 session re-use, i fail to see the same for a mechanism 
such as SRP.

again as Keith noted, it should not be impossible to amend SRP --or for 
that matter any non-trivial SASL mechanism-- to improve its performance 
if/when it offers a confidentiality service.  the aim of SM2 is to do that, 
in a generic way, for all SASL mechanisms, including 2831 if its authors so 
desire.

>I think there should be compelling technical reasons to intruduce a
>change. 2831 in its current form is a mandatory to implement mechanism
>for LDAP, for example.
>
>Paul

cheers;
rsn