On 24 Nov 2014, at 18:54, Tom Ritter <[email protected]> wrote:

> Attached is a document written in the specification format for one
> aspect of CA-signed .onion addresses - specifically a "What is a safe
> way to sign (or not sign) a statement using the .onion key"  It
> presents a couple options - I'd love to get feedback from folks on
> which they prefer.

An alternative scheme could be to take advantage of the fact that Tor does not 
RSA sign the descriptor itself but a SHA-1 hash of the descriptor. So if the 
signature for the purpose of getting a CA to accept the request uses a 
different hash function then there should not be any confusion.

For example, rather than using the SHA-1 hash, use the SHA-1 HMAC under a 
hard-coded “key”. For the attacker to abuse this signature they would need to 
find a document which hashes to the same thing. This sounds like (but should be 
checked) to have the same difficulty as performing a collision attack (2^80 
best case, 2^60 using cryptanalytic attacks).

A convenient result of this scheme is that changing the “key” lets the same 
onion key be used for other purposes, and if the key is well chosen then the 
chances of someone using the same approach is negligible.

Best wishes,
Steven
 
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