On Sun, Feb 26, 2017 at 06:30:31PM +0000, Steven Chamberlain wrote: > The regression in Bug#856215 in cdebootstrap: > "since SHA1 removal from Release file, only MD5sums are used" > could only be fixed by adding support for the SHA256 fields.
Just FYI, since it's not clear from https://wiki.debian.org/InstallerDebacle that you know this, the installer in fact uses debootstrap rather than cdebootstrap to install the base system. AFAIK debootstrap has supported SHA256 since version 1.0.28 in 2011. > An open question is whether to preserve any support for MD5. > Keeping it would: > > + reduce potential for breakage (in case MD5 is "good enough" for some > use-case or SHA256 is still impractical) > + allow verifiers to check both MD5 *and* SHA256, for even stronger > authentication in case one or both algorithms are broken Checking both adds only negligible security (look up "multicollisions") and is a waste of time. The usual reason to keep support for older hash algorithms is just to make transitions to newer ones less painful. -- Colin Watson [[email protected]]
