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SPAKE2, a PAKE
draft-irtf-cfrg-spake2-00

The information below is for an old version of the document.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 9382.
Author Watson Ladd
Last updated 2015-01-26 (Latest revision 2015-01-23)
Replaces draft-ladd-spake2
RFC stream Internet Research Task Force (IRTF)
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IETF conflict review conflict-review-irtf-cfrg-spake2, conflict-review-irtf-cfrg-spake2, conflict-review-irtf-cfrg-spake2, conflict-review-irtf-cfrg-spake2, conflict-review-irtf-cfrg-spake2, conflict-review-irtf-cfrg-spake2
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IESG IESG state Became RFC 9382 (Informational)
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Send notices to cfrg-chairs@ietf.org, draft-irtf-cfrg-spake2.all@ietf.org, cfrg@ietf.org
draft-irtf-cfrg-spake2-00
Internet Draft                                                   W. Ladd
<draft-irtf-cfrg-spake2-00.txt>                                UC Berkeley
Category: Informational                                      
Expires 26 July 2015                                     22 January 2015

                             SPAKE2, a PAKE
                    <draft-irtf-cfrg-spake2-00.txt>

Status of this Memo

   Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on date.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2015 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.   

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
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   to this document.

Abstract          

   This Internet-Draft describes SPAKE2, a secure, efficient password
 

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   based key exchange protocol.

 

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Table of Contents

   1. Introduction ....................................................3
   2. Definition of SPAKE2.............................................3
   3. Table of points .................................................4
   4. Security considerations .........................................5
   5. IANA actions ....................................................5
   6. Acknowledgements.................................................5
   7. References.......................................................5

1. Introduction

   This document describes a means for two parties that share a password
   to derive a shared key. This method is compatible with any group, is
   computationally efficient, has a strong security proof.

2. Definition of SPAKE2

   Let G be a group in which the Diffie-Hellman problem is hard of order
   ph, with p a big prime and h a cofactor. We denote the operations in
   the group additively. Let H be a hash function from arbitrary strings
   to bit strings of a fixed length. Common choices for H are SHA256 or
   SHA512. We assume there is a representation of elements of G as byte
   strings: common choices would be SEC1 uncompressed for elliptic curve
   groups or big endian integers of a particular length for prime field
   DH.

   || denotes concatenation of strings. We also let len(S) denote the
   length of a string in bytes, represented as an eight-byte big-endian
   number.

   We fix two elements M and N as defined in the table in this document
   for common groups, as well as a generator G of the group. G is
   specified in the document defining the group, and so we do not recall
   it here.

   Let A and B be two parties. We will assume that A and B are also
   representations of the parties such as MAC addresses or other names
   (hostnames, usernames, etc). We assume they share an integer w.
   Typically w will be the hash of a user-supplied password, truncated
   and taken mod p. Protocols using this protocol must define the method
   used to compute w: it may be necessary to carry out normalization.

   A picks x randomly and uniformly from the integers in [0,ph)
   divisible by h, and calculates X=xG and T=wM+X, then transmits T to
   B.

   B selects y randomly and uniformly from the integers in [0,ph),
 

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   divisible by h and calculates Y=yG, S=wN+Y, then transmits S to A.

   Both A and B calculate a group element K. A calculates it as x(S-wN),
   while B calculates it as y(T-wM). A knows S because it has received
   it, and likewise B knows T.

   Both A and B can now calculate a shared key as H(len(A)|| A || len(B)
   || B || len(S) || S || len(T) || T || len(w) || w || len(K) || K).
   The encoding of group elements must be decided upon based on
   convenience. For elliptic curve groups in short Weierstrass form,
   SEC1 uncompressed format is recommended due to wide support.

   Note that the calculation of S=wN+yG may be performed more
   efficiently then by two separate scalar multiplications via Strauss's
   algorithm.

3. Table of points for common groups

   This table was generated in the following way: A string S was hashed
   with the SHA-2 function matching the curve size repeatedly until a
   valid x coordinate for the curve was generated. The points are
   presented in hexdecimal SEC1 format. The string was "CURVE point
   generation seed (X)" with CURVE the name of the curve and X M or N
   accordingly.

   For P256:

   M =
   02004F3886286C3DBEDAABC44EAE84C7D88205289AB3A6F7DFC9B055B41CDC5D71

   N =
   02004E10BC191275D4AEB183DB6E3385CDE56AE90BEA034FB20FE4D3E0E86B57F9

   For P384:

   M =
   0300D96F8C84B8EB7BE566CA5B8788F6D7B71619F78DCA54C061E75FD0D5353570A
   CA36EB3EB16C93C855442B66970A197

   N =
   020024C63E7770841FA3F1ABCF7469F6822C84F0EFCA2DAC8D7FD4B097C8291DD70
   AA1CA824B2DFC4104F0D4FA0301EDFF

   For P521:

   M =
   0200000073962354404088E8407DE57063FE70C5F9B014531CCD09A007509193A60
 

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   F345031F8B1239F754B20CC5946C0257339314D112AFFE96EA880C3EBC074E5FF96

   N =
   02000000594BAFF0BEF7134EBBCC5D86670777EBC4A473D6797167BBEEFECEC11F8
   863AF4CEC3A651E99F0357C59450D8E06124B099D1FBBF498546400AA80F08CFFB8

4. Security Considerations

   A security proof for prime order groups is found in [REF]. Note that
   the choice of M and N is critical: anyone who is aware of an x such
   that xN=M, or xG=N or M can break the scheme above. The points in the
   table of points were generated via the use of a hash function to
   mitigate this risk.

   There is no key-confirmation as this is a one round protocol. It is
   expected that a protocol using this key exchange mechanism provides
   key confirmation separately if desired.

   Elements should be checked for group membership: failure to properly
   validate group elements can lead to attacks. In particular it is
   essential to verify that recieved points are valid compressions of
   points on an elliptic curve when using elliptic curves. This can be
   done by a quadratic character computation. It is not necessary to
   validate prime order.

   The choices of random numbers should be uniformly at random. Note
   that to pick a random multiple of h in [0, ph) one can pick a random
   integer in [0,p) and multiply by h.

   This PAKE does not support augmentation. As a result, the server has
   to store a password equivalent. This is considered a significant
   drawback.

5. IANA Considerations

   No IANA action is required.

6. Acknowledgments

   Special thanks to Nathaniel McCallum for generation of test vectors.
   Thanks to Mike Hamburg for advice on how to deal with cofactors.
   Thanks to Fedor Brunner and the members of the CFRG for comments and
   advice.

7. References

   [REF] Abdalla, M. and Pointcheval, D. Simple Password-Based Encrypted
 

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   Key Exchange Protocols. Appears in A. Menezes, editor. Topics in
   Cryptography-CT-RSA 2005, Volume 3376 of Lecture Notes in Computer
   Science, pages 191-208, San Francisco, CA, US Feb. 14-18, 2005.
   Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Germany.

Author Addresses
   Watson Ladd
   watsonbladd@gmail.com
   Berkeley, CA

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