Phil Pennock wrote:
> The approach of the Exim MTA to cryptography is simple -- don't
> second-guess the SSL library developers when it comes to choosing which
> algorithms/digests/etc to load, and provide a knob
> ("tls_require_ciphers") for administrators to restrict what can be
> loaded. The MTA developers do not want to be in the cryptoanalysis
> game, deciding when digests are or are not safe to use and reason that
> this is best handled by the SSL libraries which are maintained by people
> who understand this stuff better.
That just won't work. Cryptography is not a "drop in a library and mark a
checkbox on your product" thing. It has to be properly integrated in an
application with decisions made as to what the application actually needs,
what threat models it faces, and so on.
If the Exim MTA takes that approach to cryptography, I would consider it
unreliable from a security standpoint. The OpenSSL folks don't necessarily
have any idea, nor care, what the Exim MTA needs from OpenSSL and won't make
sure it gets what it needs. If the Exim MTA folks don't do that, then
nobody's doing that.
OpenSSL is a library that provides security services to applications, but it
has no idea what those applications need, what threats they face, what
security model they live in, and so on. You cannot simply accept the
defaults and hope for the best. That might work, but to be reliable,
somebody somewhere has to make sure it does in fact work.
DS
______________________________________________________________________
OpenSSL Project http://www.openssl.org
Development Mailing List openssl-dev@openssl.org
Automated List Manager majord...@openssl.org
