On Tue, Mar 10, 2015 at 11:47 PM, Niels Möller <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> 2. curve25519_mul should be changed to have a void return type (an
>>>    earlier implementation failed for inputs which didn't correspond to
>>>    points on the curve, but instead were points on its twist). But the
>>>    current implementation, using the Montgomery ladder, doesn't care and
>>>    computes a well defined result for all inputs.
>> No idea about this, do you think that a future re-implementation could
>> need an error code?
> I've done this change now. In the documentation, I now say that the
> output is undefined for inputs on the twist curve. Which I think is fine
> for diffie-hellman: if you don't trust your partner to do his/her part
> of the diffie-hellman exchange correctly (and authenticate the messages
> you receive), you can't expect the generated session key to be secure or
> useful, no matter how curve25519_mul computes the shared secret.

I only follow in the high level, but wouldn't it be better for this
function to be allowed fail if there are cases could fail? Even if the
current version doesn't, a future version could detect a broken peer
(but not malicious) and that is better than just ignoring it.

regards,
Nikos
_______________________________________________
nettle-bugs mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.lysator.liu.se/mailman/listinfo/nettle-bugs

Reply via email to