Subject: [TLS] Comments on draft-yang-tls-tls13-sm-suites-02

From: John Mattsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2019 09:24:32 +0000

Hi,

-- The document says in the abstract and introduction that: “The SM cipher suites are becoming mandatory in China”.

To my understating the new Chinese cryptography/encryption law effective on January 1, 2020 goes in the opposite direction by removing regulatory and legal problems with using commercial encryption and explicitly allowing foreign commercial encryption products to be used. This is all very positive. See a collection of references below.

I would therefore suggest deleting the sentence “The SM cipher suites are becoming mandatory in China”, alternatively specify where such use is mandatory (preferably with a reference).

http://www.npc.gov.cn/npc/c30834/201910/6f7be7dd5ae5459a8de8baf36296bc74.shtml
 
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npc.gov.cn%2Fnpc%2Fc30834%2F201910%2F6f7be7dd5ae5459a8de8baf36296bc74.shtml
 
https://www.lexblog.com/2019/10/31/china-enacts-encryption-law/

https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2019-11/November%202019%20Trade%20Bulletin.pdf 

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3034764/china-hopes-cryptography-law-will-provide-security-and
 
https://www.cov.com/-/media/files/corporate/publications/2019/10/china_enacts_encryption_law.pdf
 
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-10/26/c_138505655.htm

-- "SM2 is a set of elliptic curve based cryptographic algorithms including digital signature, public key encryption and key exchange scheme. In this document, only the SM2 digital signature algorithm is involved"

   The document seems to define the use of SM2 for key exchange as well 

-- I don't see why the algorithms are not DTLS-OK

Best Regards,
John