JEP for X25519/X448 key agreement

[Adam Petcher]

On 9/22/2017 1:27 AM, Anders Rundgren wrote:

> On 2017-09-21 17:25, Adam Petcher wrote:
>> I would like to leave this open for feedback for another week or so.
>> Please reply with your comments by Saturday, September 30, end of day,
>> anywhere on earth. After that time, I plan to move on to the next phase
>> of the process (group lead and architect review prior to submission).
>
> This proposal doesn't appear fundamentally different than the one I 
> drafted on
> https://github.com/cyberphone/java-cfrg-spec sometimes ago.
>
> So I'm obviously OK with that but still have a question: How do you 
> envision
> the corresponding signature algorithms will be supported?  IMO, it would
> be useful knowing that before casting things in concrete.

After the last round of API review, I developed an initial API design 
(and prototype implementation) for EdDSA to help address questions like 
this. I'll share a summary of the initial EdDSA API design for the 
purpose of evaluating the X25519/X448 JEP, but please don't pay too much 
attention to the details. We will review the EdDSA API separately in the 
future.

The EdDSA API will be similar to the X25519/X448 design. We can use the 
string "EdDSA" to identify the algorithm across all services. There are 
some naming issues to sort out for EdDSA, especially related to 
algorithm variants and selection of hash functions. These issues don't 
seem to impact X25519/X448, so we can sort them out later.

We will develop interfaces and key specs for EdDSA public/private keys, 
with a structure that is similar to the one in XDH. Private keys will be 
represented using byte arrays. Public keys are points, and it would 
probably be best to add a new class for compressed Edwards curve points 
(which have a BigInteger y coordinate and a boolean for the x 
coordinate), but there may be other good options here.

EdDSA has some additional algorithm parameters, such as the variant 
(pure, pre-hash, or context) and the context value. So we would need an 
EdDSAParameterSpec class to hold these parameters along with the curve 
parameters. The curve parameters will be stored in the 
EdDSAParameterSpec as an AlgorithmParameterSpec, allowing them to be 
specified using a NamedParameterSpec or any other method of specifying 
an Edwards curve.


>
> Just for my curiosity, if somebody wanted to implement other variants of
> XDH curves, would the proper way to do that be through using a new
> provider name (like "XDH-1") while still using the XDH classes and
> interfaces?

If a provider wants to support some other curve, then a simple way to do 
this would be to use the algorithm name "XDH", and specify the name of 
the curve in the NamedParameterSpec. All of the XDH key interfaces and 
spec classes can still be used. This is similar to how providers support 
different named curves using ECGenParameterSpec today. Example client 
code (using a hypothetical named curve "X480"):

|KeyPairGenerator kpg = KeyPairGenerator.getInstance("XDH"); 
NamedParameterSpec paramSpec = new NamedParameterSpec("X480"); 
kpg.initialize(paramSpec); KeyPair kp = kpg.generateKeyPair(); 
KeyFactory kf = KeyFactory.getInstance("XDH"); BigInteger u = ... 
XDHPublicKeySpec pubSpec = new XDHPublicKeySpec(paramSpec, u); PublicKey 
pubKey = kf.generatePublic(pubSpec); KeyAgreement ka = 
KeyAgreement.getInstance("XDH"); ka.init(kp.getPrivate()); 
ka.doPhase(pubKey, true); byte[] secret = ka.generateSecret();|


Using a different algorithm name may also be a reasonable option, since 
you could simply define (for example) "X480" as an algorithm. But this 
is similar to the example above, and the provider should probably define 
"X480" as "XDH" initialized with the "X480" NamedParameterSpec.

>
> Anders
>
>
>>
>>
>> On 9/14/2017 12:59 PM, Adam Petcher wrote:
>>> The JEP for X25519/X448 key agreement[1] is now available and ready to
>>> review. Please take a look and reply with any feedback you have.
>>>
>>> The JEP contains a description of the proposed JCA API. We have
>>> discussed the API on this mailing list, and I have attempted to
>>> incorporate all the feedback I have received. Here is a description of
>>> the changes since the last discussion:
>>>
>>> 1) Multiple people requested more specific types for public/private
>>> keys for this algorithm. The latest API design mirrors the "EC"
>>> hierarchy and has both interfaces and spec classes for public and
>>> private keys. I also added the interface "XDHKey", which serves the
>>> same purpose as "ECKey".
>>> 2) The representation of public keys was changed from byte[] to a
>>> BigInteger which holds the u coordinate of the point. Private keys are
>>> still represented using byte[] due to complications related to
>>> pruning, and also because BigInteger doesn't provide a branch-free way
>>> to get the key into another representation (which is necessary for
>>> side-channel-resilient implementations).
>>>
>>> The proposed API still lacks a standard way to specify arbitrary
>>> domain parameters, but I believe the API design could be extended to
>>> support this feature. I would prefer to add this API as a separate
>>> enhancement in the future, preferably in cooperation with someone who
>>> is developing a provider that supports this feature.
>>>
>>>
>>> [1] https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8181595
>>>
>>
>

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