On Fri, Nov 21, 2025 at 04:19:06PM +0000, Sipos, Brian J. wrote:
> Ilari,
> Yes, the issue that I ran into this discrepancy is the fact that the 
> underlying (polymorphic) algorithm families (i.e. general AES-KW) do accept 
> input keys of any length (provided they are valid for AES), and the 
> crypto-function implementation I am using also will accept input keys of 
> whatever you provide. But the COSE algorithm code point -5 described as "AES 
> Key Wrap w/ 256-bit key" strongly implies that the input key is 256-bit as 
> well, and the COSE library I'm using does not enforce this because... it just 
> isn't explicitly defined anywhere AFAIK.

AES-KW does not seem polymorphic, all the A*KW algorithms take fixed-
length key: 32 bytes for -5, 24 bytes for -4 and 16 bytes for -3.

However, AES-KW can encrypt any multiple of 8 bytes, so ciphertext
length can vary.

Checking the alg registry, seems like every algorithm taking symmetric
key either takes key of fixed 16/24/32 bytes (anything based on AES or
Chacha20), or key of (practically) any length (anything based on
HMAC).




-Ilari

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