NSA and IETF, part 3: Dodging the issues at hand

https://blog.cr.yp.to/20251123-dodging.html

by upofadown • 8 months ago

316 208 8 months ago

blog.cr.yp.to

g-mork• 8 months ago

Handforth Parish council Internet edition. You have no authority here, djb! No authority at all

D. J. Bernstein is very well respected and for very good reason. And I don't have firsthand knowledge of the background here, but the blog posts about the incident have been written in a kind of weird voice that make me feel like I'm reading about the US Government suppressing evidence of Bigfoot or something.

Stuff like this

Wow, look at that: "due process".... Could it possibly be that the people writing the law were thinking through how standardization processes could be abused?"

is both accusing the other party of bad faith and also heavily using sarcasm, which is a sort of performative bad faith.

Sarcasm can be really effective when used well. But when a post is dripping with sarcasm and accusing others of bad faith it comes off as hiding a weak position behind contempt. I don't know if this is just how DJB writes, or if he's adopting this voice because he thinks it's what the internet wants to see right now.

Personally, I would prefer a style where he says only what he means without irony and expresses his feelings directly. If showing contempt is essential to the piece, then the Linus Torvalds style of explicit theatrical contempt is probably preferable, at least to me.

I understand others may feel differently. The style just gives me crackpot vibes and that may color reception of the blog posts to people who don't know DJT's reputation.

jonstewart2• 8 months ago

He’s smart and prolific, for sure, but I lost respect for him several years ago.

johnisgood2• 8 months ago

Why, if I might respectfully ask?

amiga386• 8 months ago

It's very simple.

ECC is well understood and has not been broken over many years.

ML-KEM is new, and hasn't had the same scrutiny as ECC. It's possible that the NSA already knows how to break this, and has chosen not to tell us, and NIST plays the useful idiot.

NIST has played the useful idiot before, when it promoted Dual_EC_DRBG, and the US government paid RSA to make it the default CSPRNG in their crypto libraries for everyone else... but eventually word got out that it's almost certainly an NSA NOBUS special, and everyone started disabling it.

Knowing all that, and planning for a future where quantum computers might defeat ECC -- it's not defeated yet, and nobody knows when in the future that might happen... would you choose:

Option A): encrypt key exchange with ECC and the new unproven algorithm

Option B): throw out ECC and just use the new unproven algorithm

NIST tells you option B is for the best. NIST told you to use Dual_EC_DRBG. W3C adopted EME at the behest of Microsoft, Google and Netflix. Microsoft told you OOXML is a valid international standard you should use instead of OpenDocument (and it just so happens that only one piece of software, made by Microsoft, correctly reads and writes OOXML). So it goes on. Standards organisations are very easily corruptable when its members are allowed to have conflicts of interest and politick and rules-lawyer the organisation into adopting their pet standards.

glenstein• 8 months ago

Thank you, that seems to be the whole ball game for me right there. I understood the sarcastic tone as kind of exasperation, but it means something in the context of an extremely concerning attempt to ram through a questionable algorithm that is not well understood and risks a version of an NSA backdoor, and the only real protection would be integrity of standards adoptions processes like this one. You've really got to stick with the substance over the tone to be able to follow the ball here. Everyone was losing their minds over GDPR introducing a potential back door to encrypted chat apps that security agencies could access. This goes to the exact same category of concern, and as you note it has precedent!

So yeah, NSA potentially sneaking a backdoor into an approved standard is pretty outrageous, and worth objecting to in strongest terms, and when that risk is present it should be subjected to the highest conceiveable standard of scrutiny.

In fact, I found this to be the strongest point in the article - there's any number of alternatives that might (1) prove easier to implement, (2) prove more resilient to future attacks (3) turn out to be the most efficient.

Just because you want to do something in the future doesn't mean it needs to be ML-KEM specifically, and the idea of throwing out ECC is almost completely inexplicable unless you're the NSA and you can't break it and you're trying to propose a new standard that doesn't include it.

How is that not a hair on fire level concern?

jcranmer5• 8 months ago

Standards organisations are very easily corruptable when its members are allowed to have conflicts of interest and politick and rules-lawyer the organisation into adopting their pet standards.

FWIW, in my experience on standardization committees, the worst example I've seen of rules-lawyering to drive standards changes is... what DJB's doing right now. There's a couple of other egregious examples I can think of, where people advocating against controversial features go in full rules-lawyer mode to (unsuccessfully) get the feature pulled. I've never actually seen any controversial feature make it into a standard because of rules-lawyering.

ants_everywhere3• 8 months ago

I understand the cryptography and I agree with his analysis of the cryptographic situation.

What I don't understand is why -- assuming he thinks this is important -- he's chosen to write the bits about the standardization process in a way that predisposes readers against his case?

tptacek41• 8 months ago

LWE cryptography is probably better understood now than ECDH was in 2005, when Bernstein published Curve25519, but I think you'll have a hard time finding where Bernstein recommended hybrid RSA/ECDH key exchanges.

cryptonector16• 8 months ago

I don't know if this is just how DJB writes,

He's caustic, but often right.

throw0101a• 8 months ago

Perhaps related: from 2022, on his (FOIA?) lawsuit against the government:

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32360533

From 2023, "Debunking NIST's calculation of the Kyber-512 security level":

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37756656

seethishat• 8 months ago

For context, djb has been doing and saying these things since he was a college student:

    While a graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley, Bernstein completed the development of an encryption equation (an "algorithm") he calls "Snuffle." Bernstein wishes to publish a) the algorithm (b) a mathematical paper describing and explaining the algorithm and (c) the "source code" for a computer program that incorporates the algorithm. Bernstein also wishes to discuss these items at mathematical conferences, college classrooms and other open public meetings. The Arms Export Control Act and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (the ITAR regulatory scheme) required Bernstein to submit his ideas about cryptography to the government for review, to register as an arms dealer, and to apply for and obtain from the government a license to publish his ideas. Failure to do so would result in severe civil and criminal penalties. Bernstein believes this is a violation of his First Amendment rights and has sued the government. 

    After four years and one regulatory change, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that software source code was speech protected by the First Amendment and that the government's regulations preventing its publication were unconstitutional.

Source https://www.eff.org/cases/bernstein-v-us-dept-justice

basilgohar2• 8 months ago

djb has earned my massive respect for how consistent he's been in this regard. I love his belligerence towards authoritarian overreach in this regard. Him, Phil Zimmermann, Richard Stallman, and all are owed great respect for their insistence on their principles which have paid massive dividends to all of us through the freedom and software that has been preserved and become possible through them. I appreciate them immensely and I think we all owe them a debt of gratitude for their sacrifices, because they all paid a heavy price for their advocacy over time.

tptacek41• 8 months ago

That's the right pantheon, I think. Bernstein, Zimmerman, Stallman.

matheusmoreira• 8 months ago

Massive respect from me as well. Insisting on principles is extremely tiring and demoralizing. Doing the right thing constantly requires some serious sacrifice.

The whole world ignores the principles out of convenience. Principles are thrown out the window at the first sign of adversity. People get rich by corrupting and violating principles. It seems like despite all efforts the corrupting forces win anyway. I have no idea how these people find the willpower to keep fighting literal government agencies.

aa-jv• 8 months ago

Once, back in the woolly days of the Internet and before crypto became a household name, Wired magazine published an article about Phil Zimmermans' work .. and included his phone number at the end of the article, for some strange reason.

I was immediately star-struck, and without even thinking about it, called him up - not really expecting an answer.

He answered, and I was suddenly lost for words. What the heck was I calling him for? I told him, sorry, I just wanted to see if that phone number was real, and whether or not he was really so accessible to the general public to discuss crypto things.

He was very cordial, said yes indeed he enjoyed hearing from people who had constructive ideas about his work, and what was I really interested in. I glibly told him, I was just really testing the phone number - how did he feel about being so contactable - and he replied he had no problem with it whatsoever, and thanks for my call. I stupidly tried to explain to him how important it all was, and bumbled my way out of the call .. and I still, decades later, distinctly remember his chuckle as he put the receiver down on the other end ..

ants_everywhere3• 8 months ago

That was when he had the legal expertise of the EFF to help him make his case. Later he decided to represent himself in court and failed

This time, he chose to represent himself, although he had no formal legal training. On October 15, 2003, almost nine years after Bernstein first brought the case, the judge dismissed it....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States

AnthonyMouse• 8 months ago

Later he decided to represent himself in court and failed

To be more specific, the government broke out their get out of court free card and claimed they weren't threatening to prosecute him even though they created a rule he was intending to violate. It's a dirty trick the government uses when they're afraid you're going to win so they can get the case dismissed without the court making a ruling.

abhv• 8 months ago

20+2 (conditional support) versus 7.

22/29 = 76% in some form of "yea"

That feels like "rough consensus"

jcranmer5• 8 months ago

The standard used in the C and C++ committees is essentially a 2-to-1 majority in favor. I'm not aware of any committee where a 3-to-1 majority is insufficient to get an item to pass.

DJB's argument that this isn't good enough would, by itself, be enough for me to route his objections to /dev/null; it's so tedious and snipey that it sours the quality of his other arguments by mere association. And overall, it gives the impression of someone who is more interested in derailing the entire process than in actually trying to craft a good standard.

vorpalhex2• 8 months ago

We're talking about a landmine in a crypto spec and you're bikeshedding about consensus ratios.

We should talk about the NSA designed landmine.

pfortuny• 8 months ago

You are turning “consensus” into “majority” and those it not the same.

crote3• 8 months ago

Standards - especially security-critical ones - shouldn't be a simple popularity contest.

DJB provided lengthy, well-reasoned, and well-sourced arguments against adoption with his "nay" vote. The "aye" votes didn't make a meaningful counter-argument - in most cases they didn't even bother to make any argument at all and merely expressed support.

This means there are clearly unresolved technical issues left - and not just the regular bikeshedding ones. If he'd been the only "nay" vote it might've been something which could be ignored as a mad hatter - but he wasn't. Six other people agreed with him.

Considering the potential conflict of interest, the most prudent approach would be to route the unsubstantiated aye-votes to /dev/null: if you can't explain your vote, how can we be sure your vote hasn't been bought?

f33d51734• 8 months ago

A consensus is 100%. A rough consensus should be near 100%. 2/3 is a super majority. That's a very different standard.

yardstick3• 8 months ago

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46035639

A consensus isn’t always 100%

stavros• 8 months ago

That OMB rule, in turn, defines "consensus" as follows: "general agreement, but not necessarily unanimity, and includes a process for attempting to resolve objections by interested parties, as long as all comments have been fairly considered, each objector is advised of the disposition of his or her objection(s) and the reasons why, and the consensus body members are given an opportunity to change their votes after reviewing the comments".

From https://blog.cr.yp.to/20251004-weakened.html#standards, linked in TFA.

vitus• 8 months ago

To add to this: rough consensus is defined in BCP 25 / RFC 2418 (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2418#section-3.3):

   IETF consensus does not require that all participants agree although
   this is, of course, preferred.  In general, the dominant view of the
   working group shall prevail.  (However, it must be noted that
   "dominance" is not to be determined on the basis of volume or
   persistence, but rather a more general sense of agreement.) Consensus
   can be determined by a show of hands, humming, or any other means on
   which the WG agrees (by rough consensus, of course).  Note that 51%
   of the working group does not qualify as "rough consensus" and 99% is
   better than rough.  It is up to the Chair to determine if rough
   consensus has been reached.

The goal has never been 100%, but it is not enough to merely have a majority opinion.

ImPostingOnHN6• 8 months ago

consensus is not a synonym for majority, supermajority, or for any fraction of the whole, unless the fraction is 100%

dwaite3• 8 months ago

You may misunderstand how the IETF works. Participation is open. This means that it is possible that people who want the work to fail for their own reasons rather than technical merit can join and attempt to sabotage work.

So consensus by your definition is rarely possible given the structure of the organization itself.

This is why there are rough consensus rules, and why there are processes to proceed with dissent. That is also why you have the ability to temporarily ban people, as you would have with pretty much any well-run open forum.

It is also important to note that the goal of IETF is also to create interoperable protocol standards. That means the work in question is a document describing how to apply ML-KEM to TLS in an interoperable way. It is not a discussion of whether ML-KEM is a potentially risky algorithm.

DJB regularly acts like someone who is attempting to sabotage work. It is clear here that they _are_ attempting to prevent a description of how to use ML-KEM with TLS 1.3 from being published. They regularly resort to personal attacks when they don't get their way, and make arguments that are non-technical in nature (e.g. it is NSA sabotage, and chairs are corrupt agents). And this behavior is self-documented in their blog series.

DJB's behavior is why there are rules for how to address dissent. Unfortunately, after decades DJB still does not seem to realize how self-sabotaging this behavior is.

o11c• 8 months ago

It's always a mistake to look at numbers for consensus, without also considering how strongly the positions are held.

dhx2• 8 months ago

Amongst the numerous reasons why you _don't_ want to rush into implementing new algorithms is even the _reference implementation_ (and most other early implementations) for Kyber/ML-KEM included multiple timing side channel vulnerabilities that allowed for key recovery.[1][2]

djb has been consistent in view for decades that cryptography standards need to consider the foolproofness of implementation so that a minor implementation mistake specific to timing of specific instructions on specific CPU architectures, or specific compiler optimisations, etc doesn't break the implementation. See for example the many problems of NIST P-224/P-256/P-384 ECC curves which djb has been instrumental in fixing through widespread deployment of X25519.[3][4][5]

[1] https://cryspen.com/post/ml-kem-implementation/

[2] https://kyberslash.cr.yp.to/faq.html / https://kyberslash.cr.yp.to/libraries.html

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic_curve_point_multiplic...

[4] https://safecurves.cr.yp.to/ladder.html

[5] https://cr.yp.to/newelliptic/nistecc-20160106.pdf

Foxboron• 8 months ago

See for example the many problems of NIST P-224/P-256/P-384 ECC curves

What are those problems exactly? The whitepaper from djb only makes vague claims about NSA being a malicious actor, but after ~20 years no known backdoors nor intentional weaknesses has been reliably proven?

supernetworks_4• 8 months ago

It would be wise for people to remember that it’s worth doing basic sanity checks before making claims like no backdoors from the NSA. strong encryption has been restricted historically so we had things like DES and 3DES and Crypto AG. In the modern internet age juniper has a bad time with this one https://www.wired.com/2013/09/nsa-backdoor/.

Usually it’s really hard to distinguish intent, and so it’s possible to develop plausible deniability with committees. Their track record isn’t perfect.

With WPA3 cryptographers warned about the known pitfall of standardizing a timing sensitive PAKE, and Harkin got it through anyway. Since it was a standard, the WiFi committee gladly selected it anyway, and then resulted in dragonbleed among other bugs. The techniques for hash2curve have patched that

chc4• 8 months ago

They're vulnerable to "High-S" malleable signatures, while ed25519 isn't. No one is claiming they're backdoored (well, some people somewhere probably are), but they do have failure modes that ed25519 doesn't which is the GP's point.

crote3• 8 months ago

As I understand it, a big issue is that they are really hard to implement correctly. This means that backdoors and weaknesses might not exist in the theoretical algorithm, but still be common in real-world implementations.

On the other hand, Curve25519 is designed from the ground up to be hard to implement incorrectly: there are very few footguns, gotchas, and edge cases. This means that real-world implementations are likely to be correct implementations of the theoretical algorithm.

This means that, even if P-224/P-256/P-384 are on paper exactly as secure as Curve25519, they could still end up being significantly weaker in practice.

vessenes4• 8 months ago

in the NIST Curve arena, I think DJB's main concern is engineering implementation - from an online slide deck he published:

  We’re writing a document “Security dangers of the NIST curves”
  Focus on the prime-field NIST curves
  DLP news relevant to these curves? No
  DLP on these curves seems really hard
  So what’s the problem?
  Answer: If you implement the NIST curves, chances are you’re doing it wrong
  Your code produces incorrect results for some rare curve points
  Your code leaks secret data when the input isn’t a curve point
  Your code leaks secret data through branch timing
  Your code leaks secret data through cache timing
  Even more trouble in smart cards: power, EM, etc.
  Theoretically possible to do it right, but very hard
  Can anyone show us software for the NIST curves done right?

As to whether or not the NSA is a strategic adversary to some people using ECC curves, I think that's right in the mandate of the org, no? If a current standard is super hard to implement, and theoretically strong at the same time, that has to make someone happy on a red team. At least, it would make me happy, if I were on such a red team.

cryptonector16• 8 months ago

Dual_EC's backdoor can't be proven, but it's almost certainly real.

glitchc3• 8 months ago

This logic does not follow. Your argument seems to be "the implementation has security bugs, so let's not ratify the standard." That's not how standards work though. Ensuring an implementation is secure is part of the certification process. As long as the scheme itself is shown to be provably secure, that is sufficient to ratify a standard.

If anything, standardization encourages more investment, which means more eyeballs to identify and plug those holes.

arccy• 8 months ago

this is like saying just use C and don't write any memory bugs. possible, but life could be a lot better if it weren't so easy to do so.

johncolanduoni12• 8 months ago

No, the argument is that the algorithm (as specified in the standard) is difficult to implement correctly, so we should tweak it/find another one. This is a property of the algorithm being specified, not just an individual implementation, and we’ve seen it play out over and over again in cryptography.

I’d actually like to see more (non-cryptographic) standards take this into account. Many web standards are so complicated and/or ill-specified that trillion dollar market cap companies have trouble implementing them correctly/consistently. Standards shouldn’t just be thrown over the wall and have any problems blamed on the implementations.

themafia2• 8 months ago

It's more like "the standard makes it easier to create insecure implementations." Our standards shouldn't just be "sufficient" they should be "robust."

mpyne3• 8 months ago

Given the emphasis on reliability of implementations of an algorith, it's ironic that the Curve 25519-based Ed25519 digital signature standard was itself specified and originally implemented in such a way as to lead to implementation divergence on what a valid and invalid signature actually was. See https://hdevalence.ca/blog/2020-10-04-its-25519am/

Not a criticism, if anything it reinforces DJB's point. But it makes clear that ease of (proper) implementation also needs to cover things like proper canonicalization of relevant security variables and that supporting multiple modes of operation doesn't actually lead to different answers of security questions meant to give the same answer.

zahllos11• 8 months ago

In context, this particular issue is that DJB disagrees with the IETF publishing an ML-KEM only standard for key exchange.

Here's the thing. The existence of a standard does not mean we need to use it for most of the internet. There will also be hybrid standards, and most of the rest of us can simply ignore the existence of ML-KEM -only. However, NSA's CNSA 2.0 (commercial cryptography you can sell to the US Federal Government) does not envisage using hybrid schemes. So there's some sense in having a standard for that purpose. Better developed through the IETF than forced on browser vendors directly by the US, I think. There was rough consensus to do this. Should we have a single-cipher kex standard for HQC too? I'd argue yes, and no the NSA don't propose to use it (unless they updated CNSA).

The requirement of the NIST competition is that all standardized algorithms are both classical and PQ-resistant. Some have said in this thread that lattice crypto is relatively new, but it actually has quite some history, going back to Atjai in '97. If you want paranoia, there's always code theory based schemes going back to around '75. We don't know what we don't know, which is why there's HQC (code based) waiting on standardisation and an additional on-ramp for signatures, plus the expensive (size and sometimes statefulness) of hash-based options. So there's some argument that single-cipher is fine, and we have a whole set of alternative options.

This particular overreaction appears to be yet another in a long running series of... disagreements with the entire NIST process, including "claims" around the security level of what we then called Kyber, insults to the NIST team's security level estimation in the form of suggesting they can't do basic arithmetic (given we can't factor anything bigger than 15 on a real quantum computer and we simply don't have hardware anywhere near breaking RSA, estimate is exactly what these are) and so on.

aaomidi• 8 months ago

Except when the government starts then mandating a specific algorithm.

And yes. This has happened. There’s a reason there’s only the NIST P Curves in the WebPKI world.

zahllos11• 8 months ago

"The government" already have. That's what CNSA 2.0 means - this is the commercial crypto NSA recommend for the US Government and what will be in FIPS/CAVP/CMVP. ML-KEM-only for most key exchange.

In this context, it is largely irrelevant whether the IETF chooses or not to have a single-standard draft. There's a code point from IANA to do this in TLS already and it will happen for US Government systems.

I'd also add that personally I consider NIST P-Curves to be absolutely fine crypto. Complete formula exist, so it's possible to have failure-free ops, although point-on-curve needs to be checked. They don't come with the small-order subgroup problem of any Montgomery curve. ECDSA isn't great alone, the hedged variants from RFC 6979 and later drafts should be used.

Since ML-KEM is key exchange, X25519 is very widely used in TLS unless you need to turn it off for FIPS. For the certificate side, the actual WebPKI, I'm going to say RSA wins out (still) (I think).

tptacek41• 8 months ago

Yes: because it took forever for curves to percolate into the WebPKI (as vs. the TLS handshake itself), and by the time they did (1) we had (esp. for TLS) resolved the "safe curves"-style concerns with the P-curves and (2) we were already looking over the horizon to PQ, and so there has been little impetus to forklift in a competing curve design.

HelloNurse2• 8 months ago

The metaphor near the beginning of the article is a good summary: standardizing cars with seatbelts, but also cars without seatbelts.

Since ML-KEM is supported by the NSA, it should be assumed to have a NSA-known backdoor that they want to be used as much as possible: IETF standardization is a great opportunity for a long term social engineering operation, much like DES, Clipper, the more recent funny elliptic curve, etc.

MYEUHD• 8 months ago

the more recent funny elliptic curve

Can you elaborate please?

zahllos11• 8 months ago

I will reply directly r.e. the analogy itself here. It is a poor one at best, because it assumes ML-KEM is akin to "internetting without cryptography". It isn't.

If you want a better analogy, we have a seatbelt for cars right now. It turns out when you steal plutonium and hot-rod your DeLorean into a time machine, these seatbelts don't quite cut the mustard. So we need a new kind of seatbelt. We design one that should be as good for the school run as it is for time travel to 1955.

We think we've done it but even after extensive testing we're not quite sure. So the debate is whether to put on two seatbelts (one traditional one we know works for traditional driving, and one that should be good for both) or if we can just use the new one on the school run and for going to 1955.

We are nowhere near DeLoreans that can travel to 1955 either.

blintz5• 8 months ago

Since ML-KEM is supported by the NSA, it should be assumed to have a NSA-known backdoor that they want to be used as much as possible

AES and RSA are also supported by the NSA, but that doesn’t mean they were backdoored.

vorpalhex2• 8 months ago

The standard will be used, as it was the previous time the IETF allowed the NSA to standardize a known weak algorithm.

Sorry that someone calling out a math error makes the NIST team feel stupid. Instead of dogpiling the person for not stroking their ego, maybe they should correct the error. Last I checked, a quantum computer wasn't needed to handle exponents, a whiteboard will do.

zahllos11• 8 months ago

ML-KEM and ML-DSA are not "known weak". The justification for hybrid crypto is that they might have classical cryptanalytical results we aren't aware of, although there's a hardness reduction for lattice problems showing they're NP-hard, while we only suspect RSA+DLog are somewhere in NP. That's reasonable as a maximal-safety measure, but comes with additional cost.

Obviously the standard will be used. As I said in a sibling comment, the US Government fully intends to do this whether the IETF makes a standard or not.

adgjlsfhk14• 8 months ago

The problem with standardizing bad crypto options is that you are then exposed to all sorts of downgrade attack possibilities. There's a reason TLS1.3 removed all of the bad crypto algorithms that it had supported.

blintz5• 8 months ago

TLS 1.3 did do that, but it also fixed the ciphersuite negotiation mechanism (and got formally verified). So downgrade attacks are a moot point now.

ekr____3• 8 months ago

There were a number of things going on with TLS 1.3 and paring down the algorithm list.

First, we both wanted to get rid of static RSA and standardize on a DH-style exchange. This also allowed us to move the first encrypted message in 1-RTT mode to the first flight from the server. You'll note that while TLS 1.3 supports KEMs for PQ, they are run in the opposite direction from TLS 1.2, with the client supplying the public key and the server signing the transcript, just as with DH.

Second, TLS 1.3 made a number of changes to the negotiation which necessitated defining new code points, such as separating symmetric algorithm negotiation from asymmetric algorithm negotiation. When those new code points were defined, we just didn't register a lot of the older algorithms. In the specific case of symmetric algorithms, we also only. use AEAD-compatible encryption, which restricted the space further. Much of the motivation here was security, but it was also about implementation convenience because implementers didn't want to support a lot of algorithms for TLS 1.3.

It's worth noting that at roughly the same time, TLS relaxed the rules for registering new code points, so that you can register them without an RFC. This allows people to reserve code points for their own usage, but doesn't require the IETF to get involved and (hopefully) reduces pressure on other implementers to actually support those code points.

crote3• 8 months ago

In context, this particular issue is that DJB disagrees with the IETF publishing an ML-KEM only standard for key exchange.

No, that's background dressing by now. The bigger issue is how IETF is trying to railroad a standard by violating its own procedures, ignoring all objections, and banning people who oppose it.

They are literally doing the kind of thing we always accuse China of doing. ML-KEM-only is obviously being pushed for political reasons. If you're not willing to let a standard be discussed on its technical merits, why even pretend to have a technology-first industry working group?

Seeing standards being corrupted like this is sickening. At least have the gall openly claim it should be standardized because it makes things easier for the NSA - and by extension (arguably) increasing national security!

vessenes4• 8 months ago

My professors at Brown were walking on QR lattice cryptography well before 1997, although they may not have been publishing much - NTRU was in active development throughout the mid 1990s when I was there. Heating up by 1997 though, for sure.

zahllos11• 8 months ago

I guess that would have been Silverman etc? That's true there was NTRU before reductions were shown. Good call.

cryptonector16• 8 months ago

You're not accurately representing DJB's concern.

His concern is that NSA will get vendors to ship code that will prefer ML-KEM, which, not being a hybrid of ECC and PQC, will be highly vulnerable should ML-KEM turn out to be weak, and then there's the concern that it might be backdoored -- that this is a Dual_EC redux.

zahllos11• 8 months ago

I understand his concern perfectly. What I am saying is that his concern is not mitigated at all by the presence or absence of an IETF standard.

This is going to happen anyway (non hybrid) at least inside USG because that's what NSA want.

0xbadcafebee• 8 months ago

tl;dr DJB is trying to stop the NSA railroading bad crypto into TLS standards, the objections deadline is in two days, and they're stonewalling him

This /. story fills in the backstory: https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/11/23/226258/cryptologist-d...

  Normal practice in deploying post-quantum cryptography is to deploy ECC+PQ. IETF's TLS working group is standardizing ECC+PQ. But IETF management is also non-consensually ramming a particular NSA-driven document through the IETF process, a "non-hybrid" document that adds just PQ as another TLS option.

jancsika• 8 months ago

Dear some seasoned cryptographer,

Please ELI5: what is the argument for including the option for the non-hybrid option in this standard? Is it a good argument in your expert opinion?

My pea brain: implementers plus options equals bad, newfangled minus entrenched equals bad, alice only trust option 1 but bob only have option 2 = my pea brain hurt!

dwaite3• 8 months ago

More of a person with IETF participation experience than as a cryptographer (I enjoy watching numbers dance but am not a choreographer):

This ( https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-tls-mlkem/ ) is a document describing how to use the ML-KEM algorithm with TLS 1.3 in an interoperable manner.

It does not preclude other post-quantum algorithms from being described for use with TLS 1.3. It also does not preclude hybrid approaches from being used with TLS 1.3.

It is however a document scoped so it cannot be expanded to include either of those things. Work to define interoperable use of other algorithms, including hybrid algorithms, would be in other documents.

There is no MTI (mandatory-to-implement) once these are documented from the IETF directly, but there could be market and regulatory pressures.

My suspicion is that this is bleed-out from a larger (and uglier) fight in the sister organization, the IRTF. There, the crypto forum research group (CFRG) has been having discussions on KEMs which have gotten significantly more heated.

A person with concern that there may be weaknesses in a post quantum technique may want a hybrid option to provide additional security. They may then be concerned that standardization of non-hybrid options would discourage hybrid usage, where hybrid is not yet standardized and would likely be standardized later (or not at all).

The pressure now with post quantum is to create key negotiation algorithms are not vulnerable to theoretical post quantum computer attack. This is because of the risk of potentially valuable encrypted traffic being logged now in the hopes that it could later be targeted by a post-quantum computer.

Non-negotiated encrypted (e.g. just using a static AES key) is already safe, and signature algorithms can be updated much closer to viable attacks to protect transactional data.

ekr____3• 8 months ago

It is however a document scoped so it cannot be expanded to include either of those things. Work to define interoperable use of other algorithms, including hybrid algorithms, would be in other documents.

FYI, the specification for hybrid MLKEM + ECC is ahead of this document in the publication process. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-tls-ecdhe-mlkem/

vayup• 8 months ago

The strongest arugument made is that hybrid is more complex, more work and therefore more risky.

As someone who has been implementing such systems for 20 years, I don't buy this. In my mind, it's equivalent to saying "Seatbelts add complexity to the safety system, and it's more work. So let's get rid of it."

In this argument, the benefits of hybrid/seatbelts are not factored in adequately.

GauntletWizard• 8 months ago

The NSA has railroaded bad crypto before [1]. The correct answer is to just ignore it, to say "okay, this is the NSA's preferred backdoored crypto standard, and none of our actual implementations will support it."

It is not acceptable for the government to be forcing bad crypto down our throats, it is not acceptable for the NSA to be poisoning the well this way, but for all I respect DJB, they are "playing the game" and 20 to 7 is consensus.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_EC_DRBG

pverheggen• 8 months ago

While it's true that six others unequivocally opposed adoption, we don't know how many of those oppose the chairs claiming they have consensus. This may be a normal ratio to move forward with adoption, you'd have to look at past IETF proceeding to get a sense for that.

One other factor which comes in to play, some people can't stand his communication style. When disagreed with, he tends to dig in his heels and write lengthly responses that question people's motives, like in this blog post and others. Accusing the chairs of corruption may have influenced how seriously his complaint was taken.

dataflow6• 8 months ago

One other factor which comes in to play, some people can't stand his communication style. When disagreed with, he tends to dig in his heels and write lengthly responses that question people's motives, like in this blog post and others.

I don't have context on this other than the linked page, but if what he's saying is accurate, it does seem pretty damning and corrupt, no? Why all the lies and distortions otherwise - how does one assume a generous explanation for lies and distortions?

cryptonector16• 8 months ago

I don't have context on this other than the linked page, but if what he's saying is accurate, it does seem pretty damning and corrupt, no?

It's complicated. You'd have to know the rules and read the list archives, and make up your own mind. DJB might be overselling it, so you really do have to check it yourself. I think the WG chair had enough cover to make the call they made. What _I_ would have done is do a WG consensus call on the underlying controversial question once the controversy started, separate from the consensus call on adopting the work item. But I'm not the chair.

ImPostingOnHN6• 8 months ago

Accusing the chairs of corruption may have influenced how seriously his complaint was taken.

If you alter your official treatment of somebody because they suggested you might be corrupt (in other words, because of personal animus), then you have just confirmed their suggestion.

dwaite3• 8 months ago

So all someone who is being abusive has to do to force me to be stand there and be abused by them is to call me corrupt?

cryptonector16• 8 months ago

One other factor which comes in to play, some people can't stand his communication style. When disagreed with, he tends to dig in his heels and write lengthly responses that question people's motives, like in this blog post and others. Accusing the chairs of corruption may have influenced how seriously his complaint was taken.

The IESG though is completely mishandling it. They could discipline him if need be (posting bans for some amount of time) and still hear the appeal. Instead they're sticking their fingers in their ears. DJB might be childish and annoying, but how are they that much better?

blintz5• 8 months ago

Standardizing a codepoint for a pure ML-KEM version of TLS is fine. TLS clients always get to choose what ciphersuites they support, and nothing forces you to use it.

He has essentially accused anyone who shares this view of secretly working for the NSA. This is ridiculous.

You can see him do this on the mailing list: https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/tls/?q=djb

dataflow6• 8 months ago

standardizing a code point (literally a number) for a pure ML-KEM version of TLS is fine. TLS clients always get to choose what ciphersuites they support, and nothing forces you to use it.

I think the whole point is that some people would be forced to use it due to other standards picking previously-standardized ciphers. He explains and cites examples of this in the past.

He has essentially accused anyone who shares this view of secretly working for the NSA. This is ridiculous.

He comes with historical and procedural evidence of bad faith. Why is this ridiculous? If you see half the submitted ciphers being broken, and lies and distortions being used to shove the others through, and historical evidence of the NSA using standards as a means to weaken ciphers, why wouldn't you equate that to working for the NSA (or something equally bad)?

gnfargbl• 8 months ago

Let's invert that thinking. Imagine you're the "security area director" referenced. You know that DJB's starting point is assumed bad faith on your part, and that because of that starting point DJB appears bound in all cases to assume that you're a malicious liar.

Given that starting point, you believe that anything other than complete capitulation to DJB is going to be rejected. How are you supposed to negotiate with DJB? Should you try?

blintz5• 8 months ago

I think the whole point is that some people would be forced to use it due to other standards picking previously-standardized ciphers. He explains and cites examples of this in the past.

If an organization wants to force its clients or servers to use pure ML-KEM, they can already do this using any means they like. The standardization of a TLS ciphersuite is besides the point.

He comes with historical and procedural evidence of bad faith. Why is this ridiculous?

Yes, the NSA has nefariously influenced standards processes. That does not mean that in each and every standards process (especially the ones that don't go your way) you can accuse everyone who disagrees with you, on the merits, of having some ulterior motive or secret relationship with the NSA. That is exactly what he has done repeatedly, both on his blog and on the list.

why wouldn't you equate that to working for the NSA (or something equally bad)?

For the simple reason that you should not accuse another person of working for the NSA without real proof of that! The standard of proof for an accusation like that cannot be "you disagree with me".

ImPostingOnHN6• 8 months ago

Sunlight is the best disinfectant. I see one group of people shining it and another shading the first group.

Someone who wants to be seen as acting in good faith (and cryptography standards folks should want this), should be addressing the substance of what he said.

Consensus doesn't mean "majority rule", it requires good-faith resolutions (read: not merely responses like 'nuh-uh') to the voiced concerns.

qi_reaper• 8 months ago

I understand you are smart and are talking about things above my paygrade, but dang can you format the text on your site so it is easier to read please

pjz• 8 months ago

uhhh... that's mostly on your browser. The css is at the top and pretty skimpy. If it really bothers you, find a styler extension that will override the CSS to render it more pleasingly.

thomasdeleeuw• 8 months ago

France and Germany propose hybrid schemes as well:

The german position:

https://www.bsi.bund.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/EN/BSI/Publicat...

"The quantum-safe mechanisms recommended in this Technical Guideline are generally not yet trusted to the same extent as the established classical mechanisms, since they have not been as well studied with regard to side-channel resistance and implementation security. To ensure the long-term security of a key agreement, this Technical Guideline therefore recommends the use of a hybrid key agreement mechanism that combines a quantum-safe and a classical mechanism."

The french position, also quoting the German position:

https://cyber.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/document/follow_up...

"As outlined in the previous position paper [1], ANSSI still strongly emphasizes the necessity of hybridation1 wherever post-quantum mitigation is needed both in the short and medium term. Indeed, even if the post-quantum algorithms have gained a lot of attention, they are still not mature enough to solely ensure the security"

NSA and IETF, part 3: Dodging the issues at hand

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