Subject: FYI: SHA-2, AES

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 13:02:36 -0400

Tim Polk posted this to the IETF Working Group chairs and the PKIX Working 
Group.  I am forwarding it to this list to make sure everyone got the word.

Russ

= = = = = = = = = =

NIST has just posted a white paper that specifies hashing algorithms 
(SHA-256, SHA-384, and SHA-512) that are intended to provide security 
similar to that of the three AES key sizes. Information can be found at 
<http://www.nist.gov/sha/>.

These algorithms "will be proposed in a draft Federal Information 
Processing Standard (FIPS) in 2001. These algorithms are being made 
available for information purposes prior to the publication of the draft 
FIPS. SHA-256 is a 256-bit hash function that is intended to provide 128 
bits of security against collision attacks, and SHA-512 is a 512-bit hash 
function that is intended to provide 256 bits of security. A 384-bit hash 
may be obtained by truncating the SHA-512 output."

The web site has the NIST contact points.

One side note about AES: http://csrc.nist.gov/csor/algorithms.htm contains 
the object identifiers and ASN.1 type definitions for AES parameters for 
protocols built on ASN.1.  The OIDs for the new hash algorithms will follow 
next week.

Thanks,

Tim Polk