Hay Jon (ea.)
> I confess that I don't think syslog-sign should optimize > itself to run on a 40MHz 386. > That is indeed a very small machine. We should not "optimise" syslog-sign to such small systems. However we shouldn't ignore those systems neither. A 40Mhz 386 is a small system, for a PC/desktop/server. However, it's isn't a small system in absolute numbers! There are a lot of "small" systems out there. Embedded systems, like the processor in a TV, in car's etc are typical "small". Also, systems in (non-PS) printers, PDA's, routers, RadioLAN-gateways, etc will typical be "small". (Read: low cost, low power, ...) I hope we don't exclude them completely, in syslog-sign. I assume the are network/security operators that need the extra security of syslog-sign. But are not willing to upgrade there systems to "superCPU" level. > Arguing about the speed of the hash algorithm, however, > isn't terribly useful. True, hashing is a very lot faster then the "crypto" part! It is DSA, not SHA1, that is time-consuming > Also, for Syslog-Sign's purposes, DSA has two advantages over RSA. The > first advantage is that the signatures are much smaller than RSA True, I assume However, that never can be a reason NOT to allow RSA in the standard. Most standard offer several alternatives. We can add RSA in the rfc, and mention that "generally speaking" DSA is better. > The other is that DSA signs faster than RSA, but > is slower for verification. I haven't tested this yet. But, the information I have shows RSA is the faster one for signing. > In an application where you are doing a lot of > signing, but relatively few verifications, DSA is the clear winner. [Assuming it is the other way around:] Often, the signing an verification is done in other systems. When we use a small system, it will do the signing, and send it to en "central" collector. Where the verification is done. There we have the option to bay "fast" systems. Or to that on "nightly ours" So, when we have an option to make signing faster, at the cost of slower verification, this would help for small systems (as syslog-device). > I suppose we could come up with some sort of scheme that > didn't use public key operations > -- but then it wouldn't be syslog-sign. I can agree! However, ... When -sign is to costly, we have the risk it will be -nothing. --ALbert sent mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], to address me personal. sent mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], to address me for businesses
