OASIS Mailing List ArchivesView the OASIS mailing list archive below
or browse/search using MarkMail.

 


Help: OASIS Mailing Lists Help | MarkMail Help

office message

[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [List Home]


Subject: RE: Visible Hashes and PBKDF2


What's the issue number tracking this?

-----Original Message-----
From: Dennis E. Hamilton [mailto:dennis.hamilton@acm.org] 
Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2010 10:20 AM
To: 'Hanssens Bart'; 'ODF TC List'
Cc: Rob Weir; David LeBlanc
Subject: Visible Hashes and PBKDF2

Bart, David, and Rob

I see this on-list exchange as a matter of mutual education on the context and what the existing provisions are.  There is no particular problem although there are a couple of wordings in CD05 that reflect incomplete resolutions of some issues (some effected wordings were not caught in the resolution).  

There were previous issues on this topic and I also did considerable analysis.  There might need to be a branch off of a previously-resolved issue to correct some small glitches that have crept into later drafts of ODF 1.2 where it can be seen that the application of previous resolutions needs further adjustment (e.g., remove contradictions because a related paragraph was left unchanged).  But the intention has already been reflected in existing JIRA issues, and the adjustments I see now are quite straightforward.

   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

With regard to having a URI for PBKDF2, the problem is that PBKDF2 is not a single method, it is a framework of methods.  Finally, there is no mention of PBKDF2 in [xmlenc-core], which is what we have been using.

PBKDF2 requires a supplied Pseudo-Random Function (typically an HMAC but it can be one of many) and there are specifications that are needed with regard to the size of the key to be produced (PBKDF2 can produce very large keys in terms of bits, in terms of entropy, different story).  Finally, there are whatever the input conditioning/constraint is for starting up a PBKDF2.
PBKDF2 specifications (in RSA documents and NIST materials, as I recall) deal with the internal padding operations that are required and how data passes to successive iteration stages.  It matters what conditioning is done for the password that PBKDF2 starts with.  For Blowfish CFB, the password is turned into a start key using SHA1, and that is used in the PBKDF2 as the
password from which the key is derived.   This is a pre-PBKDF2 convention
and not part of PBKDF2 which can start with a password of pretty much any length and do its own conditioning to get down to the size used in the iterations.

There is an xmlenc-core1 currently in Working Draft, so we can't reference it, <http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlenc-core1/>.  However, if you look at section
5.4.2 of that draft, it will be seen that it is specified by a complex element that requires a salt procedure, an iteration count, an output key length, and a Pseudo-Random Function (PRF) as parameters.  The *default PRF* in the current draft of xmlenc-core1 is hmac-sha1.  This element is expected to be used in an <xenc11:PBKDF2-params> element of an <xenc11:KeyDerivationMethod> element and that is not related to the novel but potentially valuable use of PBKDF2 as a password verification procedure.

That's why the *specific* parameterization of PBKDF2 that is used with the ODF Blowfish CFB has been spelled out in the ODF 1.2 update on the legacy encryption algorithm.  (I need to check how much the existing JIRA issues on this are reflected in the current CD05 editor draft and make sure the resolutions are completed.  That's one of my commitments for today.)
 
 - Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Hanssens Bart [mailto:Bart.Hanssens@fedict.be]
Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2010 02:13
To: David LeBlanc; dennis.hamilton@acm.org; 'ODF TC List'
Subject: RE: [office] The problem of visible hashes for protection keys

David,

> I do not know if there's an algorithm URI for PBKDF2, but seems like 
> there
ought to be.

There is one in XML-ENC 1.1:  http://www.w3.org/2009/xmlenc11#pbkdf2

(or did you mean in the ODF spec ?)


Best regards

Bart
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this mail list, you must leave the OASIS TC that generates this mail.  Follow this link to all your TCs in OASIS at:
https://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/portal/my_workgroups.php 



[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [List Home]