Subject: Re: [IPsec] Ben Campbell's No Objection on draft-ietf-ipsecme-chacha20-poly1305-11: (with COMMENT)

From: Yoav Nir <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2015 08:48:19 +0300

Hi, Ben.

See below

> On Jul 8, 2015, at 5:51 AM, Ben Campbell <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> COMMENT:
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> This is easier than usual to read for this sort of draft :-) 
> 
> -- Section 1, 1st paragraph:
> I concur with Stephen's comment. Furthermore, this entire paragraph
> pretty much reads like advertising copy. Can it be toned down a bit?

As I replied to Stephen, I think the text is factual. Perhaps a more toned-down version could be something like this:

   The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES - [FIPS-197]) has become the
   go-to algorithm for encryption.  It is not the most commonly used 
   algorithm in many areas, including IPsec VPNs.  On most modern 
   platforms AES is anywhere from 4x to 10x as fast as the previous 
   popular cipher, 3-key Data Encryption Standard (3DES - [SP800-67]). 
   3DES also has a 64-bit block, which means that the amount of data 
   that can be encrypted before rekeying is required is not great.  
   These reasons make AES not only the best choice, but the only choice.

> -- 8.1 (Normative References)
> 
> The reference to [RFC7539]  is a normative downref. I don't see it on the
> downref registry, nor was it mentioned in the last call notice. (For the
> record, I think it's a reasonable downref.)

Yes, it should have been pointed out. RFC 7539 was written specifically to serve as a reference for this and the TLS document (and any future documents anyone might want to write about SSH, S/Mime, etc.)

Yoav

---

From: "Ben Campbell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 07 Jul 2015 19:51:03 -0700

Ben Campbell has entered the following ballot position for
draft-ietf-ipsecme-chacha20-poly1305-11: No Objection

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