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Clarify and strengthen key update requirements #1457

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mikkelfj opened this issue Jun 18, 2018 · 1 comment
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Clarify and strengthen key update requirements #1457

mikkelfj opened this issue Jun 18, 2018 · 1 comment
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-tls editorial An issue that does not affect the design of the protocol; does not require consensus.

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@mikkelfj
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mikkelfj commented Jun 18, 2018

From several discussions it appears that the importance of key updates is not well understand and the consequences can be fatal. The requirements are in place via numerous indirect links over TLS 1.3 spec and further documents.

Some crypto modes can handle a large number of packets safely while others break down statistically, including AES-GCM.

A solution could be to require key updates no later than after 2^32 packets and require a protocol error shutdown if peer does not rekey in time. While 2^32 may be early in some cases, it is not really a burden, and the alternative might be that implementations skip handling key updates.

See also discussion here:
#1405 (comment)

@martinthomson martinthomson added editorial An issue that does not affect the design of the protocol; does not require consensus. -tls labels Jun 19, 2018
@martinthomson
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The current design has limits for each cipher suite, that would be inherited from TLS. If we want to reference those requirements, we can do so.

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Labels
-tls editorial An issue that does not affect the design of the protocol; does not require consensus.
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