Subject: Re: pkinit-ecc issues

From: Jeffrey Hutzelman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2006 20:12:33 -0400

On Monday, August 28, 2006 02:47:06 PM -0400 Jeffrey Hutzelman 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> (1) Section 3 says:
>
>         The elliptic curve domain parameters recommended in [X9.62],
>         [FIPS186-2], and [SECG] SHOULD be used.
>
>     The keyword SHOULD is very strong.  It does not simply mean "this is a
>     good idea"; it means that compliant implementations are expected to
>     behave as specified most of the time, and that "full implications must
>     be understood and carefully weighed before choosing a different 
course"
>     (RFC2119 section 3).  The text from section 3 quoted above applies the
>     full weight of this definition to all 33 curves recommended by SEC2,
>     as well as to any additional curves specified by FIPS 186-2 and/or 
X9.62,
>     without making any distinction between them.
>
>     Section 5 already recommends the use of a smaller number of specific
>     curves, making the quoted paragraph from section 3 unnecessary.  Thus
>     I think that paragraph should be removed.  Once this is done, the only
>     remaining references to X9.62 are informative, and that item should be
>     moved to the informative references section.

I should note that this is my opinion; the WG is welcome to disagree.
In fact, I'd like to see comments on this point.

---

From: "Liqiang(Larry) Zhu" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2006 02:24:51 -0700

I submitted -02 with the extra section 3 paragraph in -01 removed. It
should have addressed the rest of issues as well.

--Larry

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked]
[mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Jeffrey
Hutzelman
Sent: Monday, August 28, 2006 11:47 AM
To: [email-masked]
Cc: Jeffrey Hutzelman
Subject: pkinit-ecc issues

In the process of preparing my writeup of PKINIT-ECC to go to the IESG,
I found several issues that need to be resolved before this document can
move forward.  Larry, please correct these issues and submit a new
draft.  Note that there is nothing you can do about item (3), and you
probably shouldn't try; I'm working with the PKIX chairs on that.

-- Jeff

(1) Section 3 says:

    The keyword SHOULD is very strong.  It does not simply mean "this is
a
    good idea"; it means that compliant implementations are expected to
    behave as specified most of the time, and that "full implications
must
    be understood and carefully weighed before choosing a different
course"
    (RFC2119 section 3).  The text from section 3 quoted above applies
the
    full weight of this definition to all 33 curves recommended by SEC2,
    as well as to any additional curves specified by FIPS 186-2 and/or
X9.62,
    without making any distinction between them.

    Section 5 already recommends the use of a smaller number of specific
    curves, making the quoted paragraph from section 3 unnecessary.
Thus
    I think that paragraph should be removed.  Once this is done, the
only
    remaining references to X9.62 are informative, and that item should
be
    moved to the informative references section.

(2) Section 5 also makes reference to [SECG], citing it as the source
for
    OID's used identifying named curves.  There are two problems with
this
    reference:

    - The [SECG] entry refers to SEC1, but the domain parameters and
OID's
      are specificed in SEC2.  This reference needs to be updated to
refer
      to SEC2.  I suggest also changing the tag from [SECG] to [SEC2].

    - The [SECG] entry is in the informative references section, but the
      use of this reference as a source for OID's means that the
reference
      is normative.

(3) Several references are made to draft-ietf-pkix-ecc-pkalgs, for OID's
    identifying ECDSA, ECDH, and SHA-{256,384,512}.  The PKIX document
    recently expired, but the chairs of that WG assure me that the work
    is ongoing.  There is apparently a dispute which might take some
time
    to resolve.

    I've talked with Sam, and as long as we have a normative reference
to
    the PKIX document, I don't think we can move forward until the
issues
    with that document are resolved.  I'm working with the PKIX chairs
to
    try to determine when that is likely to happen.

(4) [PKINIT] is RFC4556; please update.

(5) The id-nits checker found the following problems.  Please correct
    these, and insure that the next version of the document passes the
    checks before submitting it to the I-D repository.  There is an
    online version of the service at http://tools.ietf.org/tools/idnits

  * There is 1 instance of too long lines in the document, the longest
one
    being 2 characters in excess of 72.
    [the offending line is line 412, in references]

  - The page length should not exceed 58 lines per page, but there was 1
longer
    page, the longest (page 9) being 75 lines

---

From: Jeffrey Hutzelman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2006 16:16:50 -0400

> should have addressed the rest of issues as well.

The diffs would have been a lot easier to read if you'd just change the 
_value_ of the PKINIT reference, rather than its name.  But don't change it 
back now!

You also appear to have added text and references to deal with Dan Brown's 
last call comment.  Since the WG was silent when I asked for comments on or 
objections to this change, I'm going to assume everyone is OK with it.

Now all we're working on is the ECCPKALGS reference; I'm in communication 
with the PKIX WG chairs to try to resolve that.

-- Jeff