1.3.6 cert signatures

Atom 'Smasher' atom at suspicious.org
Sun Jul 25 08:24:41 CEST 2004


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On Sun, 25 Jul 2004, David Shaw wrote:

> Incidentally, don't assume that because SHA-256 is larger than SHA-1
> that it is stronger.  Remember the lesson of SHA-0.
================

very true. i have to admit that i was ASSuming that the difference in 
strength between SHA-1 and SHA-256 is straightforward... but history may 
prove otherwise.


> Programs do not become obsolete overnight.  PGP 2.x is generally
> considered obsolete, but that took *years* (and some people seem to
> have missed the memo).  GnuPG doesn't even support generating SHA-256
> signatures yet.  You are using a development build (or hacking 1.2.x)
> to do it, so it's rather premature to claim that the actual released
> version of GnuPG is now obsolete...
==================

i don't want to imply that the release branch is obsolete, or even lacking 
anything for 99.99% of users... i'm well aware that i'm pushing things to 
the limit.

i can't remember the last time a saw a 1.2.2 version header. (are GnuPG 
users just more likely than PGP users to upgrade regularly?) i'm 
generating the SHA-256 certs with 1.3.x, and 1.2.4 seems to handle them 
fine. i have both versions installed on my desktop, and did enough testing 
between them that i'm happy with it.


> Not today.  Not tomorrow.  Next year?  I don't know.  I have not
> rigorously tested interoperability with SHA-256 certification
> signatures.  I have seen some anecdotal evidence, but nothing more.
> It may just not work without harming much else, or it may fail in some
> large and messy manner under certain conditions.  Not enough data yet.
================

i guess i'll be the guinea pig ;)


> To a certain extent, I guess I have cast my vote on the issue since
> GnuPG 1.2.x cannot generate SHA-256 certification signatures and GnuPG
> 1.3.x can.
>
> Even when 1.3.x becomes GnuPG 1.4, though, the default will remain
> SHA-1.  People will need to explicitly set the digest to SHA-256 if
> they want to.
==================

as long as most people are using DSA primary keys, most people will never 
generate a cert signature with anything but SHA-1.

while we're kind of on the topic, i noticed these things when signing keys 
with 1.3.6:

1) if i do explicitly set it to generate a cert with SHA-256, and i'm 
signing something with a DSA key, gpg will consider it a hard error and 
exit. would it make more sense to just issue a warning in that case? i'm 
not going to ask for a "cert-digest-preferences" option.

2) according to the 1.3.6 man page, "--ask-cert-level" should be on by 
default. that seems to be incorrect.


         ...atom

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