All:
I personally dislike bullies, whether street thugs or the intellectually
effete. Please modulate your tone and comments accordingly.
Thank you.
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: RE: [oasis-charter-discuss] EKMI
> From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <>
> Date: Sat, November 18, 2006 8:03 pm
> To: "Arshad Noor" <>
> Cc: <>,
> <>, "June Leung" <>,
> "Terwilliger, Ann" <>, "John Messing"
> <>, "Davi Ottenheimer" <>,
> <>
>
> > From: Arshad Noor [mailto:]
>
> > The confusion between the WG and TC charters arises because
> > of the industry's (sometimes misguided) notion for referring
> > to the "shared secrets" of authentication credentials as
> > "symmetric keys" - which is similar to the term used by
> > cryptographers when referring to encryption/decryption keys
> > used with symmetric ciphers.
>
> The use of the term symmetric key to refer to a MAC key is the accepted term in the field.
>
> There are several proposed MAC modes for AES and there are several composite encryption/authentication modes for block ciphers.
>
>
> > In addition, the use of such algorithms (3DES, AES) and
> > symmetric- encryption keys by the KEYPROV protocols to
> > protect the "shared credential secret" during provisioning,
> > adds to the confusion.
> > Some might be misled into thinking that 3DES/AES keys are
> > being provisioned by the Provisioning System for general use
> > by business applications, as opposed to the use of those
> > symmetric encryption keys by the Provisioning System and the
> > Credential Container for securely transporting the
> > credential-secret between the two.
>
> Such misperceptions are not a concern. It is not our job to give people tutorials in network protocol design.
