On Apr 2, 2014, at 12:06 PM, S Moonesamy <[email protected]> wrote:

> 
>> What does it matter from a security perspective?  DNS messages are short 
>> lived.  It's not like we are encrypting a novel to be kept secret for 100 
>> years.  With zone signing keys lasting a month, 6 months, or so, and the 
>> ability to disallow them fairly quickly, what's the difference between this 
>> so-called 80 or 112 bit strength difference?  Yes, I understand the doomsday 
>> scenario that someone might "guess" my private key and forge messages.  But 
>> an attack is not as simple as forging messages, it takes the ability to 
>> inject them too.  That can be done - but chaining all these things together 
>> just makes the attack that much less prevalent.
> 
> For context, the discussion is about a ZSK.  There is a theory that it would 
> take under a year and several million (U.S.) dollars to break 1024 bits.  It 
> has been said (not on this mailing list) that an organization could do it 
> within a shorter time.  It's not a good idea to wait for the demonstration as 
> it can raise concerns about the entity which chose the key.
> 
> As a general comment I tried to find out which NIST recommendations are being 
> discussed in respect to DNSSEC.  The requirements mentioned by Joe Abley 
> refers to NIST SP 800-78.  That document is about "Cryptographic Algorithms 
> and Key Sizes for Personal Identity
> Verification".  Is that the NIST recommendation on which this discussion is 
> based?
> 

The only DNSSEC related NIST SP's are 800-57 and 800-81-2.  SP 800-57 is in 3 
parts, part one is general key considerations and part 3 covers specific uses 
like DNSSEC.  It's showing its age though.  

The US Federal policy (now) is 2048 bit RSA for all uses, DNSSEC has a special 
exemption for 1024 bit ZSK's if desired (to reduce risks of fragmented 
packets).  I do know some .gov zones using 2048 bit KSK and ZSK's as local 
policies can call for stronger keys.  By 2015, .gov/mil zones should migrate to 
ECDSA.  Not sure if that will happen given the track record, but that is the 
roadmap.  

Scott

> Regards,
> S. Moonesamy  
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===================================
Scott Rose
NIST
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