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Re: representation of IKE DH shared secret

  This email was intentionally not sent to the list and I'm not too
happy it was posted without my permission. 

  sigh,

    Dan.

On Thu, 22 Apr 1999 18:01:17 PDT John Burke unethically copied:
> Just for the interest of all contributors:
>
> > At 03:34 PM 4/22/99 -0700, you wrote:
> >On Thu, 22 Apr 1999 13:01:55 PDT you wrote
> >> At 06:53 PM 4/21/99 -0700, somebody wrote:
> >> >On Wed, 21 Apr 1999 01:54:47 EDT you wrote
> >> >> 
> >> >> For a similar case, that of the KE payload, RFC 2409 does specify the
> >> >> more about the representation in section 5:
> >> >> 
> >> >>    The Diffie-Hellman public value passed in a KE payload, in either a
> >> >>    phase 1 or phase 2 exchange, MUST be the length of the negotiated
> >> >>    Diffie-Hellman group enforced, if necessary, by pre-pending the valu
>e
> >> >>    with zeros.
> >>   [ ... ]
> >> >I'm obviously not enough of a pedant so let me try to be one. Webster
> says:
> >> >"encode: to convert (as a body of information) from one system of
> >> >communication into another." So if the KE payload was, say, MIME then we
> >> >would have an encoding. The information is not converted into another
> >> >system. It's not an encoding. It's no contradiction.
> >> > 
> >> [ ... ]
> >> >Is this a problem? We seem to have gotten a score (or so) interoperable
> >> >implementations as its written but maybe that's just because a D-H
> >> >secret hasn't been produced yet that began with 8 bits of zero. But
> >> >somehow I doubt it.
> >> 
> >> I would suggest the attitude showing through in the above does not
> >> contribute to the clearest specs.  As another responder (Tero Kivinen
> >> <kivinen@ssh.fi>) pointed out, some implementors had to go to an
> >> interoperation workshop to discover such things.  The fact that x percent
> >> of twenty people guess right - when not entirely isolated - doesn't make
> >> the spec clear.
> >
> >Nice suggestion John. But it's true. I'm not anal-retentive enough to
> >write "clear". I seriously wonder how some people tie their shoes in the
> >morning and walk across a street.
> >
> >> On the other hand there is this in the conclusion:
> >
> >> >The way to proceed is to write up some suggested text and send it to
> >> >the list. If no one complains I'll add it to the next rev which will be
> >>  [ ... ]
> >
> >What a completely content-free post. A "suggestion", which is no such thing
> >at all, followed by an observation of something that was obvious to all.
> >Way to contribute! 
> >
> >  Dan,
> >
> >
>
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