On Fri, 2017-12-15 at 09:48 -0500, Kent Borg wrote:
> On 12/15/2017 07:01 AM, Luca Boccassi wrote:
> > Premise: I am not a security expert.
> 
> Me neither. I know just enough to have some hints of ways I could
> screw 
> myself.
> 
> > Using the same key pair for both endpoints should be the equivalent
> > of
> > using a pre-shared key, so per-se it shouldn't have any
> > consequences.
> > 
> > Apart from the obvious ones with deployment, double exposure of the
> > private key (one machine gets compromised == all machines are
> > compromised) and so on, which you already identified.
> 
> My worry is over the math of the key exchange (magic that allows two 
> nodes to agree on a session key in such a way that an eavesdropper
> can't 
> figure it out). If both sides are using the same keys does anything 
> breakdown in that math?
> 
> I am afraid of something like:
> 
>    "Oh, my God! If those values are equal this second part of the 
> equation cancels out and
>     an observer can easily infer the session key!"
> 
> Rather rarefied territory, I know. Any suggestions of whom else I
> might 
> ask...?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> -kb, the Kent who also tried Perry Metzger's cryptography list but 
> hasn't gotten an answer there yet.

As far as I remember (haven't looked at the code in a good while) the
session keys are not derived from the public keys.

-- 
Kind regards,
Luca Boccassi

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