Jon Callas wrote:
* We've been telling the world for years that they should avoid home-grown crypto, and
that they should stick to well-trodden ground because it's dangerous out there. And they
listened to us! But that means that when you talk about the virtues of Rabin-Miller,
they're going to hear, "blah, blah, snake oil, blah," unless you have a really
good story. The presumption today is that if you're not using the standard algorithms,
you don't know what you're doing.
That looks like an innovation suppression strategy.
Not only this argument (i.e. forwarding a misconception that snake oil
includes promising mathematical results that are not in the mainstream
standards) inhibits the proven R-W digital signature scheme for new
application contexts, it also signals an ideological objection to any
new mathematical development. Weil pairings has been mentioned.
I believe the crypto implementation minefield evolved significantly from
the overall scene when PGP grew up from mostly snake oil to a current
standard. Look at how many multiple-precision arithmetic libraries and
tools are available now to implement PK crypto. Do you further argue
that anything besides OpenSSL is snake oil?
Can you identify significant mistakes (in systems in actual use) that
can be traced (as in a root cause analysis) to errors in the
mathematical formulation of a PK crypto scheme?
If the mathematical aspects of cryptography comes up with something
useful, the risk inherent with the implementation minefield should not
be used as a rationale for saying 'no thanks' in advance of a fuller
analysis.
If I understand correctly the original request, the contemplated use of
digital signatures is replacement of SHA fingerprints and user
information in a version/revision control system, i.e. bare digital
signatures applied to stored data. No predefined interoperability
requirements. This looks like an opportunity to look at innovative
signature schemes from the body of mathematical knowledge.
Regards,
--
- Thierry Moreau
CONNOTECH Experts-conseils inc.
9130 Place de Montgolfier
Montreal, QC, Canada H2M 2A1
Tel. +1-514-385-5691
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