Re: Pass phrase based public/private key generation
Hello Ryan, Thanks for the like. But this does not need any sophisticated cryptological analysis. It is just the standard asymmetric key stuff. In normal operation, a key is created from bits of Entropy, generally gathered from the operating system. All I need to do is replace those bits of entropy with a hash of the pass phrase. Everything should work as before. And 100 bits of real pass phrase uniqueness should be plenty to generate a 2048 bit RSA key (say) because there are lots of gaps in what a useful key can be. We are feeding into the algorithms that search for a big prime etc. not modifying the output. This is really a practical programming issue. Ideally there would be options on the SSL command line. Or it would be easy to use the internal API to specify entropy (or hopefully someone has already done that). Regards, Anthony On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 6:05 PM, Ryan Hurst ryan.hu...@globalsign.comwrote: Anthony, ** ** I am not a cryptographer, nor do I play one on TV; however I have read papers that talk about models of doing this, I filed these works under the category of “neat” because of the applicability limitations and noted security risks; with that said I never looked into it in great detail myself. ** ** Here is a link I remembered running across recently talking about this model: ** ** http://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/1662/how-can-one-securely-generate-an-asymmetric-key-pair-from-a-short-passphrase ** ** Ryan *From:* owner-openssl-us...@openssl.org [mailto: owner-openssl-us...@openssl.org] *On Behalf Of *anthony berglas *Sent:* Tuesday, February 14, 2012 7:38 PM *To:* openssl-users@openssl.org *Subject:* Re: Pass phrase based public/private key generation ** ** Hello Jeff, ** ** Thanks for that. But IDE still needs a server and binary secrets to be held. I just want a simple pass phrase based scheme. It is odd that this is not more commonplace. ** ** Anthony ** ** On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 12:36 PM, Jeffrey Walton noloa...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 7:53 PM, anthony berglas anth...@berglas.org wrote:You might want to read about identity based encryption before making the jump to 'passphrase - private key'. Jeff __ OpenSSL Project http://www.openssl.org User Support Mailing Listopenssl-users@openssl.org Automated List Manager majord...@openssl.org ** ** -- Dr Anthony Berglas, anth...@berglas.org Mobile: +61 4 4838 8874 Just because it is possible to push twigs along the ground with ones nose does not necessarily mean that that is the best way to collect firewood.** ** ** ** -- Dr Anthony Berglas, anth...@berglas.org Mobile: +61 4 4838 8874 Just because it is possible to push twigs along the ground with ones nose does not necessarily mean that that is the best way to collect firewood.
Pass phrase based public/private key generation
Hello All, I want to set up a simple system in which the private key is derived entirely from a pass phrase. I.e. the pass phrase provides all the Entropy that is used. This means that the private key can be regenerated from the pass phrase at any time, without needing to maintain a secure key store. This is analogous to password based encryption for symmetric keys. Probably no need to strengthen it much given the cost of public key pair generation. Just some salt. My application is essentially like an encrypting zip program. But I want to be able to have a (number of) master keys that can guarantee decryption if the main symmetric key is lost. I know that PKI is supposed to be difficult, but I am trying to build a simple system for non-technical users to use. They can write down a pass phrase on a piece of paper (most of them can write). I could see no way of doing this using the openssl command line. Has anyone else done it or something similar? Thanks, Anthony -- Dr Anthony Berglas, anth...@berglas.org Mobile: +61 4 4838 8874 Just because it is possible to push twigs along the ground with ones nose does not necessarily mean that that is the best way to collect firewood.
Re: Pass phrase based public/private key generation
On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 7:53 PM, anthony berglas anth...@berglas.org wrote: Hello All, I want to set up a simple system in which the private key is derived entirely from a pass phrase. I.e. the pass phrase provides all the Entropy that is used. This means that the private key can be regenerated from the pass phrase at any time, without needing to maintain a secure key store. This is analogous to password based encryption for symmetric keys. Probably no need to strengthen it much given the cost of public key pair generation. Just some salt. My application is essentially like an encrypting zip program. But I want to be able to have a (number of) master keys that can guarantee decryption if the main symmetric key is lost. I know that PKI is supposed to be difficult, but I am trying to build a simple system for non-technical users to use. They can write down a pass phrase on a piece of paper (most of them can write). I could see no way of doing this using the openssl command line. Has anyone else done it or something similar? You might want to read about identity based encryption before making the jump to 'passphrase - private key'. Jeff __ OpenSSL Project http://www.openssl.org User Support Mailing Listopenssl-users@openssl.org Automated List Manager majord...@openssl.org
Re: Pass phrase based public/private key generation
Hello Jeff, Thanks for that. But IDE still needs a server and binary secrets to be held. I just want a simple pass phrase based scheme. It is odd that this is not more commonplace. Anthony On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 12:36 PM, Jeffrey Walton noloa...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 7:53 PM, anthony berglas anth...@berglas.org wrote:You might want to read about identity based encryption before making the jump to 'passphrase - private key'. Jeff __ OpenSSL Project http://www.openssl.org User Support Mailing Listopenssl-users@openssl.org Automated List Manager majord...@openssl.org -- Dr Anthony Berglas, anth...@berglas.org Mobile: +61 4 4838 8874 Just because it is possible to push twigs along the ground with ones nose does not necessarily mean that that is the best way to collect firewood.
