Hi Hannes,
> On 9 May 2019, at 16:42, Hannes Tschofenig <hannes.tschofe...@arm.com> wrote: > > Hi all, > > I am still a bit unhappy about this paragraph: > > " > Constrained devices sometimes do not have the necessary hardware to > generate statistically random numbers for private keys and DTLS > ephemeral keys. Past experience has also shown that low-resource > endpoints sometimes generate numbers which could allow someone to > decrypt the communication or guess the private key and impersonate as > the device [PsQs] [RSAorig]. Additionally, random number key > generation is costly, thus energy draining. > “ > > If you get hardware that does not have a hardware-based RNG then you are in > trouble. The main security protocols we look into do not work without a > source of randomness. Hence, getting the certificate & private key from the > server will not get you too far. > > I believe we should encourage developers to pick the correct hardware for the > task rather than making them believe we have come up with solutions that > allow them to get away without a hardware-based RNG. > > I also do not believe the statement that random number key generation is > costly. Can you give me some number? I think that statement in particular is troublesome. Even if we were to believe it to be true today by some measure, is there any reason to believe it will continue to be true? We need to be raising the bar. > > The references to [PsQs] [RSAorig] are IMHO also not appropriate because they > are conveying a different message (at least that's my understanding from > reading them). The message is that you have to be careful with designing and > using a random number generator on embedded systems because the sources of > entropy may just not be there (like keyboards, harddisk drive, processing > scheduling, etc.). > Yes. And maybe the emphasis of this paragraph should shift as well along these lines. Eliot
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