Hi Ben,

Thank you for the explanation and justification.

I personally find this sort of explanation really useful.  I do wonder whether 
this sort of material might make a useful informational RFC at some point ... 
although of course everyone is very busy.

But anyway, I think that we can regard my original comment as resolved.

Regards,
Rob


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Benjamin Kaduk <[email protected]>
> Sent: 10 October 2020 04:25
> To: Rob Wilton (rwilton) <[email protected]>
> Cc: [email protected]; Tim Wicinski
> <[email protected]>; [email protected]; <[email protected]>
> <[email protected]>; The IESG <[email protected]>; Donald Eastlake
> <[email protected]>; Roman Danyliw <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: [DNSOP] Robert Wilton's No Objection on draft-ietf-dnsop-dns-
> zone-digest-12: (with COMMENT)
> 
> Hi Rob,
> 
> One can do a bit of semi-generic analysis here to help motivate 12 bytes
> as
> being a tolerable choice (one could make some argument for 32 being the
> right length to actually use, but the protocol-mandated floor does not
> necessarilly need to be the "full protection" value as there can be
> trade-offs in play.
> 
> There's two general classes of attack to consider: when an external
> attacker takes an existing ZONEMD and tries to modify the associated zone,
> or when the zone provider is the malicious entity that wants to provide
> different content to different people but give them the same digest value
> so that the cursory examination indicates the two different zones are
> identical.  (The second one is going to be fairly contrived most of the
> time, and may not be in the practical threat model for most people.)  In
> the former case the cryptographic property in play is second-preimage
> resistance which, in the absence of a quantum computer, scales as the
> bitlength of the output, so 12 bytes of digest means that for a good hash
> function the attacker has to put in a work factor of roughly 2**96, which
> is a substantial burden.  The cryptographic property in play for the
> second
> case is regular collision resistance, which scales as the square root of
> the preimage problem due to the birthday paradox.
> 
> A work factor of 2**48 is feasible but nontrivial, so 12 bytes poses some
> burden for both classes of attack and a substantial burden for the riskier
> attack.  To me, that seems like a reasonable tradeoff for the bare minimum
> allowed by the protocol, though of course opinions can differ.
> 
> -Ben
> 
> On Fri, Oct 09, 2020 at 11:10:14PM -0400, Donald Eastlake wrote:
> > Hi Rob,
> >
> > I'm not aware of any precise analysis supporting the 12 byte minimum
> > size but I believe it is reasonable and in line with the lower end of
> > the range of hash sizes typically standardized by the IETF these days.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Donald
> > ===============================
> >  Donald E. Eastlake 3rd   +1-508-333-2270 (cell)
> >  2386 Panoramic Circle, Apopka, FL 32703 USA
> >  [email protected]
> >
> > On Fri, Oct 9, 2020 at 5:23 AM Rob Wilton (rwilton) <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi Donald,
> > >
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: Donald Eastlake <[email protected]>
> > > > Sent: 09 October 2020 00:47
> > > > To: Rob Wilton (rwilton) <[email protected]>
> > > > Cc: The IESG <[email protected]>; draft-ietf-dnsop-dns-zone-
> [email protected];
> > > > Tim Wicinski <[email protected]>; <[email protected]>
> <[email protected]>;
> > > > [email protected]
> > > > Subject: Re: [DNSOP] Robert Wilton's No Objection on draft-ietf-
> dnsop-dns-
> > > > zone-digest-12: (with COMMENT)
> > > >
> > > > On Thu, Oct 8, 2020 at 7:18 AM Robert Wilton via Datatracker
> > > > <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > > > Robert Wilton has entered the following ballot position for
> > > > > draft-ietf-dnsop-dns-zone-digest-12: No Objection
> > > > >
> > > > > ...
> > > > >
> > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----
> > > > > COMMENT:
> > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----
> > > > >
> > > > > ...
> > > > >
> > > > >     2.2.4.  The Digest Field
> > > > >
> > > > >        The Digest field MUST NOT be shorter than 12 octets.
> Digests for
> > > > the
> > > > >        SHA384 and SHA512 hash algorithms specified herein are
> never
> > > > >        truncated.  Digests for future hash algorithms MAY be
> truncated,
> > > > but
> > > > >        MUST NOT be truncated to a length that results in less than
> 96-
> > > > bits
> > > > >        (12 octets) of equivalent strength.
> > > > >
> > > > > When I read this, I wonder why the limit of 12 bytes was chosen.
> > > > Possibly a
> > > > > sentence that justifies why this value was chosen might be useful,
> > > > noting that
> > > > > the two suggested algorithms have significantly longer digests.
> > > >
> > > > To me, the purpose of the limit is to establish a minimum strength
> > > > against brute force attacks. Of course, the hash algorithm also has
> to
> > > > be strong but the length of the Digest field puts a sharp limit on
> the
> > > > strength of a ZONEMD.
> > > [RW]
> > >
> > > I absolutely agree on specifying a minimum value.  My question is how
> was the minimum length of "12 bytes" chosen?  Is there some analysis
> performed that indicates that this is the right minimal value, or is this
> just a "12 bytes sounds like enough"?
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > > Rob
> > >
> > >
> > > >
> > > > Note that for the same reason there is a similar provision from 2006
> > > > in RFC 4635, Section 3.1, point 4, which sets a minimum size of 10
> > > > bytes for the hashes that appear in TSIG RRs.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > > Donald
> > > > ===============================
> > > >  Donald E. Eastlake 3rd   +1-508-333-2270 (cell)
> > > >  2386 Panoramic Circle, Apopka, FL 32703 USA
> > > >  [email protected]
> > > >
> > > > >     ...
> > > > >
> > > > > Regards,
> > > > > Rob
> >

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