On Nov 3, 2014, at 8:05 PM, Peter Saint-Andre - &yet <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> On 10/26/14, 1:26 PM, Paul Hoffman wrote:
> 
>> *** Huge security issue ***
>> 
>> 5.4:
>>    Rationale: because Diffie-Hellman keys of 1024 bits are estimated to
>>    be roughly equivalent to 80-bit symmetric keys, it is better to use
>>    longer keys for the "DHE" family of cipher suites.  Key lengths of at
>>    least 2048 bits are estimated to be roughly equivalent to 112-bit
>>    symmetric keys and might be sufficient for at least the next
>>    10 years.  See Section 5.5 for additional information on the use of
>>    modular Diffie-Hellman in TLS.
>> 
>> Earlier, the document points to RFC 3766 (thank you), and that document has 
>> different estimates than what the draft has here. From RFC 3766:
>> ====================
>>    +-------------+-----------+--------------+--------------+
>>    | System      |           |              |              |
>>    | requirement | Symmetric | RSA or DH    | DSA subgroup |
>>    | for attack  | key size  | modulus size | size         |
>>    | resistance  | (bits)    | (bits)       | (bits)       |
>>    | (bits)      |           |              |              |
>>    +-------------+-----------+--------------+--------------+
>>    |     70      |     70    |      947     |     129      |
>>    |     80      |     80    |     1228     |     148      |
>>    |     90      |     90    |     1553     |     167      |
>>    |    100      |    100    |     1926     |     186      |
>>    |    150      |    150    |     4575     |     284      |
>>    |    200      |    200    |     8719     |     383      |
>>    |    250      |    250    |    14596     |     482      |
>>    +-------------+-----------+--------------+--------------+
>> 
>> 5.1.  TWIRL Correction
>> 
>>    If the TWIRL machine becomes a reality, and if there are advances in
>>    parallelism for row reduction in factoring, then conservative
>>    estimates would subtract about 11 bits from the system security
>>    column of the table.  Thus, in order to get 89 bits of security, one
>>    would need an RSA modulus of about 1900 bits.
>> ====================
>> 
>> That is, with a TWIRL correction, 1024-bit keys yield about 65 bits of 
>> equivalent strength, not the 80 listed in the draft. A 2048-bit key would 
>> give about 92 bits of strength.
>> 
>> Of course, the draft can refer to other documents that have happier 
>> estimates of strength for 1024-bit and 2048-bit keys, but that does not help 
>> the intended audience for this document.
> 
> Paul, would the following text be more accurate?
> 
>   Rationale: For various reasons, in practice DH keys are typically
>   generated in lengths that are powers of two (e.g., 2^10 = 1024 bits,
>   2^11 = 2048 bits, 2^12 = 4096 bits).  Because a DH key of 1228 bits
>   would be roughly equivalent to only an 80-bit symmetric key
>   [RFC3766], it is better to use keys longer than that for the "DHE"
>   family of cipher suites.  A DH key of 1926 bits would be roughly
>   equivalent to a 100-bit symmetric key [RFC3766] and a DH key of 2048
>   bits might be sufficient for at least the next 10 years.  See
>   Section 5.5 for additional information on the use of modular Diffie-
>   Hellman in TLS.
> 
>   As noted in [RFC3766], correcting for the emergence of a TWIRL
>   machine would imply that 1024-bit DH keys yield about 65 bits of
>   equivalent strength and that a 2048-bit DH key would yield about 92
>   bits of equivalent strength.
> 
>   Servers SHOULD authenticate using at least 2048-bit certificates.

That's OK. I wish we could use stronger words about TWIRL (since I would be 
flabbergasted if one hadn't been created, and surprised if it hadn't been 
improved on), but I think that's all we can say while being evidence-based.

--Paul Hoffman
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