Thanks for the interesting commentary, Ian! I have updated my personal servers — because I control both the client and the server, run current userspaces on both, and only stand to lose speed due to costlier cipher suits — but not the ones I administer professionally.
Anyways, this is an interesting development to see. :) Alan On Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 6:46 PM ianG <[email protected]> wrote: > On 2/09/2015 12:43 pm, Alan Orth wrote: > > I'm not sure if you folks saw this, but a few weeks ago the NSA updated > > their Suite B recommendations. They now recommend AES-256, curve P-384, > > and SHA-384. Here's a before and after of their "Suite B" cryptography > > recommendations: > > > > Before (web archive): > > > > > https://web.archive.org/web/20150403110658/https://www.nsa.gov/ia/programs/suiteb_cryptography/index.shtml > > < > https://web.archive.org/web/20150403110658/https://www.nsa.gov/ia/programs/suiteb_cryptography/index.shtml > > > > > > After: > > > > https://www.nsa.gov/ia/programs/suiteb_cryptography/index.shtml > > <https://www.nsa.gov/ia/programs/suiteb_cryptography/index.shtml> > > > > Now you need to decide to yourself if this is worth updating your > > infrastructure configuration. :) > > > > My understanding of the facts (?) is this. > > 1. NSA has mandate to protect USG agencies. It also has a mission to > breach everyone (else) but let's ignore that for the moment. > > 2. NSA knows more about quantum than anyone else, in the sense that it > has the budget to know, and has been spending that budget. > > 3. (we suspect) NSA is worried about quantum. > > 4. NSA guidelines protect out to a 25 years. So if NSA can't rule out > a quantum attack in the 25 year++ horizon, then they have to protect > against a quantum attack. > > 5. Current understanding is that a quantum attack reduces the > bit-strength of an algorithm by the square-root - much like a birthday > attack. > > 6. So in essence, take previous minimum strengths (128, etc) and double > (to baseline 256, etc). > > > > So, what does this mean for everyone else? Not a lot. > > The problem is that NSA is mandated to protect US government agencies > and not the rest of the world. Following standard threat modelling, > they built their list of threats, not your list of threats. Their list > of threats include a very well funded Chinese / Russian attack. Eg, > state of the art, monster-grade quantum supercomputer. Which is only > going to be used against the juciest of targets - the USA. Lets call > this the Bletchley Park Attack. > > Our list of threats doesn't include that computer. Because, if any > government wants our data, they'll spend $1000 to hire a local thief, > not $1000000000 to deploy their monster machine on us. > > The NSA, by its own methodology and logic and customer, cannot afford to > be wrong on this. We can afford to wait, and we can afford to be wrong. > Wait and see. When ordinary people (botnet operators) can buy quantum > computers that can crack keys, we'll know about it. > > > > iang > > > ps; the key flaw in this debate is this: using someone else's threat > model and not realising it's wrong for you. A common failing. > _______________________________________________ > Ach mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.cert.at/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ach >
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