Re: I have a technical idea/change for the ECC draft

["David Crick" <dacrick@xxxxxxxxx>]

>  I favor this too.
>
>  One additional issue I realized that we didn't address is the mixing of
> keys for two levels of Suite-B profile. It is similar to the issue of mixing
> non-Suite-B and Suite-B keys.
>
>  TOP SECRET must use AES-256, SECRET must use AES-128 or AES-256. We cannot
> make TOP SECRET keys use AES-128, yet this is what happens with implicit
> AES-128. Making AES-256 implicit will not work either, because now SECRET
> keys will be picked as compatible with TOP SECRET keys. Finally, having no
> implicit preferences disallows TOP SECRET keys to receive SECRET
> information.
>
>  Do we now need two Suite-B flags?

My initial reaction was "no": one flag restricts ciphers for both
profiles (TS and S) - and that's absolutely correct for "Suite B."

But "OpenPGP ECC" possibly has several categories (levels):

1. Strict Suite B TS
2. Strict Suite B S
3. ECC with AESes
(3a ECC with Twofish, Camellia)
4. ECC with 3DES
(4a ECC with Twofish, Camellia if you think 3DES is higher)
5. ECC with other ciphers / non-ECC keys

but maybe this is now into the realm of cipher preferences?

I need to give this a bit more thought.