Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2016 14:27:01 +0300
From: Solar Designer <solar@...nwall.com>
To: discussions@...sword-hashing.net
Subject: Re: [PHC] hash encryption

On Wed, Mar 23, 2016 at 09:18:41AM -0700, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 22, 2016 at 9:38 PM, Solar Designer <solar@...nwall.com> wrote:
> > In other words, 128-bit security for a 256-bit block is what
> > Luby-Rackoff's usual 3 or 4 rounds provide (it's 4 for chosen ciphertext
> > attacks, which might or might not be relevant here).
> >
> > Almost 256-bit security for a 256-bit block is achieved at 7 rounds, as
> > shown in that other paper above.  I did not verify their results.
> 
> It seems like it would be simpler to pick a round count and stick with
> it regardless of key length, especially if performance doesn't really
> matter.

Simpler, yes.

Performance somewhat matters.  We're talking something like 0.1% of
total yescrypt running time for some of its typical uses (at 2 MiB).
This is very small, but measurable.

> >> Hashing the key length in before the key would avoid needing to think about
> >> related-key attacks that might lose you one round or so of security under
> >> some circumstances.  Using a short-key variant as an oracle against a
> >> long-key variant would be nasty
> >
> > That's an interesting thought.  SHA-256 already hashes in the full
> > message length in bits, and with only the key being of variable length
> > here this feels sufficient.  Do you think it might not be, and why?
> 
> Suppose we ignore the round count variability and further weaken the
> scheme by forcing either one or two rounds (obviously insecure).  Then
> imagine we have two related keys k1 and k2.  k2 = k1 || padding1 || a
> few more bits.  That is, k2 is what you get when you extend k1 by the
> Merkle-Damgard padding you'd have if you fed k1 into your cipher
> followed by some more bits.  (IOW this is a classic length-extension
> setup, assuming I did it right.)
> 
> Now an attacker can use the block cipher under k1 as an oracle to
> learn hash values under k1, which gives the attacker the entire
> internal state of the round function prior to hashing in the extra
> bits in k2.
> 
> This is obviously a useless attack as is (weird related key assumption
> and only works directly on one or two rounds), but I can imagine
> adaptive chosen plaintext/ciphertext variants extending to an extra
> round or two.
> 
> The possibility of this type of attack would go away completely if you
> used a wide-pipe hash or if you hashed in the key length.

Hashing the key length at a fixed offset (rather than only within the
Merkle-Damgard padding, which is already happening) would remove the
possibility of this type of attack because the longer k2 would then
change the initial k1 length's worth of computation as well through the
necessarily changing full k2 length embedded in that portion.  Going
from that reasoning, here's another way to achieve the same effect:

Don't hash the key length, but instead hash in the round number after
rather than before the key.  Since the round number is different for
each round whereas the key is fixed across all rounds, the round numbers
used for k1 can't (except for any one of them) be part of the longer k2.

> > Hashing in the full key length may be tricky to implement because it'd
> > require converting it to an endianness-independent layout first.  I am
> > trying to avoid cluttering the code with unneeded(?) stuff like this.

The alternative I suggested above avoids this complexity.

> > Round number was much easier since those numbers are definitely small
> > enough to fit in 1 byte, and this is a requirement for the Luby-Rackoff
> > proof (independent functions for each round).
> >
> > BTW, I am considering changing:
> >
> >                 SHA256_Update(&ctx, &round, 1);
> >
> > to:
> >
> >                 {
> >                         uint8_t round_bytes[4] = {round};
> >                         SHA256_Update(&ctx, round_bytes, sizeof(round_bytes));
> >                 }

The alternative I suggested above also eliminates the key alignment
problem: the key will directly follow the half-block, so will be 128-bit
aligned (and thus aligned to SHA-256's 32-bit words).  Only the 1-byte
round count will be potentially unaligned, and may need to be merged
with the last partial 32-bit word coming from the key, but that's easier
than dealing with a potentially unaligned key.

The code I posted will change from:

		SHA256_Update(&ctx, &block[half], 16);
		SHA256_Update(&ctx, &round, 1);
		SHA256_Update(&ctx, key, keylen);

to:

		SHA256_Update(&ctx, &block[half], 16);
		SHA256_Update(&ctx, key, keylen);
		SHA256_Update(&ctx, &round, 1);

As simple as that.

What do you think?

Alexander

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