Re: pgcrypto: add s2k-count

From: Alvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com>
To: Jeff Janes <jeff(dot)janes(at)gmail(dot)com>
Cc: pgsql-hackers <pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org>, Marko Kreen <markokr(at)gmail(dot)com>
Subject: Re: pgcrypto: add s2k-count
Date: 2016-03-09 18:08:03
Message-ID: 20160309180803.GA984119@alvherre.pgsql
Views: Raw Message | Whole Thread | Download mbox | Resend email
Thread:
Lists: pgsql-hackers

Jeff Janes wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 4:09 PM, Alvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com> wrote:

> Yeah, I find that pretty impenetrable too. I just treated it as a
> black box, I changed how the number passed into it gets set, but not
> the meaning of that number. Initially I had the user set the one-byte
> format directly because that was much simpler, but before submitting
> the patch I changed it to take the human-readable value and do the
> conversion to the one byte format, because the gpg command-line tool
> takes the number of iterations, not the one byte format, as the input
> for its own s2k-count setting.

Funny -- I partially edited the patch to use the one-byte number instead
too, because that seemed more reasonable, but eventually (looking at
gnupg) decided not to. And deleted the email on which I explained that,
without sending.

> > I would love to be able to read gnupg's code to figure out what it is
> > that they do, but the structure of their code is even more impenetrable
> > than pgcrypto's. Perhaps it would be easier to measure the time it
> > takes to run some s2k operations ...
>
> The timings are about the same between the patched pgcrypto and gpg
> when using the same settings for s2k-count. Also, if I encrypt with
> gpg with a certain setting, pgcrypto properly detects that iteration
> count and uses it (if it didn't get it correct, it would be unable to
> decrypt). And vice versa.

OK, it seems we're good then.

> Do we know why the default for pgcrypto is to use a stochastic number
> of iterations? I don't see how that can enhance security, as the
> number of iterations actually done is not a secret.

Nope, unless Marko has some input there. I find it baffling too.

> And I see that you committed it now, so thanks for that too.

You're welcome, thanks for the patch.

--
Álvaro Herrera http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Remote DBA, Training & Services

In response to

Browse pgsql-hackers by date

  From Date Subject
Next Message Jeff Janes 2016-03-09 18:09:35 Re: multivariate statistics v14
Previous Message Jeff Janes 2016-03-09 17:58:57 Re: pgcrypto: add s2k-count