We discussed the planned deprecation of ECDHE_PSK on an HAE working group call 
this AM.  A concern was raised regarding how quickly ECDHE_PSK will be 
deprecated.  I recall from the core working group calls that there is a desire 
to deprecate this feature quickly once this new authentication method is added.

The concern raised by HAE group is that they are launching their service 
frameworks on core 15.09 and will be using ECDHE_PSK for authentication.  They 
need to plan a transition to the new method while supporting released products 
using ECDHE_PSK.

I looked for and did not find a jira ticket tracking the deprecation of 
ECDHE_PSK.  Is there one?

From: [email protected] 
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Lioy, 
Marcello
Sent: Thursday, December 10, 2015 2:58 PM
To: Greg Zaverucha; [email protected]; 
[email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: Re: [AllSeen Alliance TSC] Deprecation (and replacement) of ECDHE_PSK

As there has been no responses to this the Working Group decided in the call 
today to in fact deprecate this authentication mechanism.  Thanks to Greg for 
driving the proves and volunteering to do the work.

From: 
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
 [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Greg 
Zaverucha
Sent: Thursday, December 03, 2015 2:23 PM
To: 
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>;
 
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>;
 
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Subject: [Allseen-core] Deprecation (and replacement) of ECDHE_PSK

The core working group discussed today whether to mark ECDHE_PSK as deprecated 
in 16.04, and have a new mechanism called ECDHE_SPEKE replace it.  Information 
about the new mechanism is here:  
https://jira.allseenalliance.org/browse/ASACORE-2055 .  The main difference 
between SPEKE and PSK is that SPEKE is secure even when the pre-shared secret 
is a low-entropy password, while for PSK the peers must share a key with high 
entropy (ideally, 128 bits).

The reasons for deprecation are

-          There is no use case that ECDHE_PSK addresses that ECDHE_SPEKE 
doesn't.  The primary use case for PSK in Security 2.0 is onboarding, and SPEKE 
is appropriate for this use case.

-          ECDHE_PSK is easy to misuse, if an app uses a short password instead 
of a high entropy key, security is lost.

-          Having two ways to do similar things causes confusion, complicates 
the code (and increases TC memory footprint)

Consensus on the call was to go ahead with deprecation, this email is to give 
those that weren't on the call a chance to weigh in.  We'll finalize the 
decision on the core WG call next Thursday (Dec. 10th).  If you have concerns 
about this change, please voice them before then.

Greg
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