pbkdf2 performance vs sjcl

[rubensayshi]

I was trying to figure out how to optimize bip39 a bit for mobile (cordova), the sjcl package is about 10x faster for me than the pbkdf package, could be interesting to switch?

• note you have to ./configure --with-sha512 --with-hmac --with-pbkdf2 --with-bitArray && make the sjcl, the default npm package does not contain sha512.... *

var sjcl = require('sjcl');
var pbkdf = require('pbkdf');

var mnemonic = "later arrest fit foil goat excess online question trumpet grape license term bounce job nominee nuclear credit artefact measure record buyer service husband april tower average athlete pole alpha law picnic tail prepare satisfy dizzy hire illness legal forum rain sniff ask asthma pond present beach either minimum";
var salt = "roooooooobs";
var mnemonicBuffer = new Buffer(mnemonic, 'utf8');
var saltBuffer = new Buffer(password, 'utf8');

t = (new Date).getTime();

console.log(typeof sjcl.hash.sha512);

var hmacSHA512 = function (key) {
    var hasher = new sjcl.misc.hmac( key, sjcl.hash.sha512 );
    this.encrypt = function () {
        return hasher.encrypt.apply( hasher, arguments );
    };
};

var sjclResult = sjcl.misc.pbkdf2(sjcl.codec.utf8String.toBits(mnemonic), sjcl.codec.utf8String.toBits(salt), 2048, 64 * 8, hmacSHA512);
console.log("sjcl.misc.pbkdf2 " + ((new Date).getTime() - t));
console.log(sjcl.codec.hex.fromBits(sjclResult));

t = (new Date).getTime();

var pbkdf2Result = pbkdf2.pbkdf2Sync(mnemonicBuffer, saltBuffer, 2048, 64, 'sha512');
console.log("pbkdf2.pbkdf2Sync " + ((new Date).getTime() - t));
console.log(pbkdf2Result.toString('hex'));

[rubensayshi]

small repo to test with: https://github.com/rubensayshi/pbkdf2-benchmark

@dcousens said he was experiencing sjcl to be slower, maybe something different about his test case

[rubensayshi]

ios is also factor 10x and is by far the worst, pdkdf2 takes 23s, sjcl 2.8s

[rubensayshi]

maybe something along the lines of; blocktrail@a49b3d7

always seems hard to swap out certain parts for browserify...

[dcousens]

@rubensayshi what version of browserify are you using? My iOS mobile takes exactly 2.2s in a cordova build ...

[rubensayshi]

crypto-browserify@3.9.13

[rubensayshi]

did you try that benchmark repo I made @dcousens, are you getting different results than me? because desktop chrome and android also are a lot slower ....

[rubensayshi]

also, if I try my small benchmark repo I'm getting a lot better results for ios than in the app I was initially testing it in, still sjcl is faster though.

so I gotta go investigate ...

[dcousens]

@rubensayshi might close this here in favour of browserify/pbkdf2#18?

[rubensayshi]

aye