On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 7:51 PM, Eric Rescorla <ekr@xxxxxxxx> wrote: >>> Perhaps, but this isn't a digest but rather a MAC, and so the attack >>> model is different. >> You seem to be forgetting that the finished messages have been reused >> for other purposes already: > No, I'm not forgetting that. That doesn't change the fact that the > computation is > a MAC. I'm not a specialist in MAC algorithms but by checking the ECRYPT II[0] report of 2009-2010, I can try making some points. A MAC has a security level that depends on the size of the MAC and the size of the key. That is a 12-byte MAC has security level of MIN(2^{key_size}, 2^{96}) [1], irrespective of the key size used. As I understand the addition of SHA-384 as PRF was to increase the security margin of TLS comparing to the SHA-1 PRF. This is not occuring now because a MAC based on algorithm that returns 384-bits and truncates it to 96 can offer nothing more than an algorithm that outputs 160 bits and are trucated to 96. Hence there is no significant difference than SHA-1 or SHA-384 in that case, so why define SHA-384 anyway? For me the ciphersuites defined in TLS should have a uniform security level. I.E. why use AES-256 with security level of 2^256 but use a MAC for a handshake of 2^96 bits? regards, Nikos [0]. http://www.ecrypt.eu.org/documents/D.SPA.13.pdf [1]. For an HMAC the square root of the internal state of the hash algorithm is also affecting the security level. _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf