phc-discussions - sub-block memory*depth attacks and countermeasures

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Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 18:44:40 +0300
From: Solar Designer <solar@...nwall.com>
To: discussions@...sword-hashing.net
Subject: sub-block memory*depth attacks and countermeasures

Hi,

Continuing this topic previously discussed in here mostly with Dmitry
and Marcos.

My current understanding is that scrypt's even/odd shuffling and simple
reverse order of sub-blocks written (vs. read) achieve a similar
(limited) effect at increasing the recomputation depth (counted at
sub-block operations level) for a given ratio of sub-blocks stored
(assuming attacker's optimal choice of which sub-blocks to store).

It appears optimal for an attacker to store the first few sub-blocks
that would be needed should the block happen to be referenced later, as
well as a sparse selection of further sub-blocks, so that the rest of
the (non-stored) sub-blocks for this block would be recomputed while the
first few (stored) sub-blocks are being processed (as input for whatever
new block is being computed).  (As discussed earlier, this is in
addition to also using a block-level TMTO - that is, some blocks are
stored in full, and some with some of their sub-blocks missing as
discussed here.  e.g. every other block may be stored in full, and the
other half of them with some/most sub-blocks missing, for a slightly
higher than 1/2 memory usage total.)

Now, here's an idea for a more effective countermeasure:

During normal defensive computation (non-TMTO), read and process the
sub-blocks of a currently chosen "random" previous block in an order
that couldn't have been reliably predicted earlier in computation,
without effectively computing the hashing scheme's state up to this
block.  That way, an attacker can't make as optimal a choice on which
sub-blocks to store.  The defender's choice of sub-blocks ordering could
be an Integerify()-alike on the current block, or it could be e.g. a
function of the current (sequential) block index, relying on the fact
that it isn't known in advance at what times (aka new block indices) a
given previous block would be needed.

I think this could be an enhancement for Lyra2 and yescrypt.  I don't
have a strong opinion on whether this enhancement is worth the added
complexity or not.  (Maybe with Lyra2's larger typical block sizes than
yescrypt's, it is worth it in Lyra2.)  Anyhow, it's too late for this in
PHC now - yet I wanted to post this to ensure this idea remains free for
anyone to use at a later time.

Alexander