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Re: AH-MD5


"Theodore Ts'o" says:
> Here's another "me too"; I'd personally feel a lot safer with a prepend
> and postpend of the MD5 key.
> 
> Is there some strong objection to this, or should we just go ahead and
> do it?

My only objection is that it feels very much like it just gives people
warm fuzzies without any rational need for it -- since we are
including the length of the packet in the protected area, we are not
susceptible to appending attacks. It also wastes CPU. If people
insist, however, I suppose it will go the way the bulk of people
want. I'd still like to hear a solidly rational reason for it beyond
that it makes people feel better. Remember that this is NOT the same
sort of situation as keyed-MD5 without a protected length field.

I'm not trying to denegrate anyone here, by the way -- you, Hugo, and
others who have asked for this are all high on my list of people I
esteem in the working group. In this case, though, I'd feel better if
someone gave me a cryptographically based argument for appending the
key.

Perry
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