Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 03:05:05 +0300
From: Solar Designer <solar@...nwall.com>
To: discussions@...sword-hashing.net
Subject: Re: [PHC] simplifying yescrypt

On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 05:58:37AM +0400, Solar Designer wrote:
> As long as yescrypt supports computing not only its native, but also
> classic scrypt hashes, it obviously can't be made simpler than scrypt.
> However, I am planning on introducing yescrypt-lite supporting a subset
> of yescrypt's full functionality, and yescrypt-lite would not be a
> superset of the full scrypt either.  Here's what I'd change in -lite:
> 
> - Drop support for (ye)scrypt's p parameter.
> (Only p=1 will be supported in -lite, and hence -lite will not include
> the different handling of p that now exists between classic scrypt and
> native yescrypt hashes.)
> 
> - Maybe: drop support for classic scrypt hashes.
> (Have only native yescrypt hashes supported in -lite.)
> 
> - Maybe: drop support for a ROM.
> 
> I'd appreciate arguments for/against the two "maybes" above, considering
> that I intend -lite to be usable in Unix crypt(3) and PHP crypt(), etc.

I still intend to introduce yescrypt-lite with the above changes, but I
intend to treat it merely as a partial implementation of yescrypt, so
not subject to PHC's tweaks deadline. ;-)  Anyone could create an extra
implementation, including a partial functionality one.  This one will
just happen to come from me rather than from someone else. ;-)  This is
not removal of features from yescrypt in PHC.

I am going to focus on choosing from and submitting tweaks to the full
yescrypt first, while that is still permitted.  It would be premature to
split out -lite when the full thing is changing.

> Overall, I don't expect this to make yescrypt-lite simpler than scrypt
> (it will have pwxform, which isn't in scrypt), but it'd certainly be
> simpler than full yescrypt.
> 
> In PHC context, I am willing to offer replacing full yescrypt with
> yescrypt-lite, and keeping the full yescrypt (a strict superset of
> yescrypt-lite, re-adding full classic scrypt support and the rest of
> full yescrypt features) as a non-PHC extra.  That is, if the PHC panel
> prefers so, yescrypt-lite and not full yescrypt would be the PHC
> candidate, although of course it can/should be kept in consideration
> that there exists this sort of superset (which would remain a reason
> for yescrypt-lite to be defined the way it would be).  I don't actually
> recommend doing things in this way (I'd rather keep full yescrypt in
> PHC, with -lite being a subset of it, much like how TwoCats/SkinnyCat
> is currently in PHC), but this is a valid option.

No one on the PHC panel asked me to replace the full yescrypt with -lite
for PHC, so I am not going to do that.

> Regardless of what exactly goes into yescrypt-lite (and what's excluded
> from it), and regardless of whether/which yescrypt remains in PHC, here
> are some other changes I am considering to simplify yescrypt (the full
> thing, not only -lite):
> 
> - Drop support for ROM access frequency mask.  In practice, this will
> mean no ROM-on-SSD support (only ROM-in-RAM will be supported).  The
> reason why I am considering dropping this is that in most cases where I
> would have recommended use of ROM-on-SSD I would _also_ recommend
> simultaneous use of ROM-in-RAM, and then it would need to be two ROMs,
> with different access frequency, resulting in even greater complexity.
> Perhaps just one mask (only for the ROM-on-SSD) would be enough even in
> that two-ROMs case, though.

Done.

> - Merge the various yescrypt flags into one - to choose native yescrypt
> mode or classic scrypt mode.  This doesn't simplify the reference code
> much, but it will simplify documentation, analysis, testing,
> benchmarking, and it may simplify optimized implementations.  A drawback
> is that there will no longer be any deliberately-TMTO-friendly native
> yescrypt mode (for which I think some use cases exist), requiring that
> people use the classic scrypt mode if they require that.

I am still considering this.  It's not a trivial decision to make.

> - Without scrypt compatibility (as in -lite) and when in native mode, I
> can replace Salsa with ChaCha.  If a given build lacks scrypt
> compatibility (would be true for -lite), this would probably make it
> slightly simpler by eliminating the need for 32-bit word shuffling
> associated with interfacing with Salsa.  The drawback is that full
> yescrypt would become more complicated, requiring both Salsa (for scrypt
> compatibility) and ChaCha.  This is why I stayed with Salsa only so far.

I decided to stay with Salsa only.  I improved the specification
document to describe the 32-bit word shuffling in more detail and more
specifically.  It's a simple transformation (and a no-op in SIMD
implementations on little-endian archs), but it does have some
specification complexity cost.  (It's simpler in code than in spec.)

Alexander

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