NODE bca5eefcPerfect Forward Secrecy - is it worth it?
Simon Spero <ses@tipper.oit.unc.edu>Wed, 1 Nov 1995 07:48:45 +0800
Quick survey; how important is perfect forward secrecy to you? I've asked
three people locally so far and gotten four different answers, so in the
spirit of spreading divisiveness where'er I go, I'll try and get a few
more opinions here :-)
In general, schemes offering PFS require a extra PK-op, and an extra
round-trip when compared to non-PFS schemes. This cost is incurred once
per "session", but can add on the order of seconds to startup times.
Should key-management schemes where PK is available always provide PFS,
allow PFS, or not provide PFS? The amount of code needed to implement
each choice point is similar, if you're using something like BSAFE.
Simon
---
(defun modexpt (x y n) "computes (x^y) mod n"
(cond ((= y 0) 1) ((= y 1) (mod x n))
((evenp y) (mod (expt (modexpt x (/ y 2) n) 2) n))
(t (mod (* x (modexpt x (1- y) n)) n))))
NODE f63ad08eRe: Perfect Forward Secrecy - is it worth it?
"Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>Thu, 2 Nov 1995 01:06:05 +0800
Simon Spero writes:
> Quick survey; how important is perfect forward secrecy to you?
Very. It makes one's life far easier. It makes protecting historical
traffic easy. Its a wonderful feature for a cryptosystem.
> In general, schemes offering PFS require a extra PK-op, and an extra
> round-trip when compared to non-PFS schemes. This cost is incurred once
> per "session", but can add on the order of seconds to startup times.
Well, things aren't that bad if you use eliptic curve variants on D-H,
or if you are very careful. See Phil Karn's work on this for Photuris...
Perry