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Test Vectors for the Stream Cipher RC4
draft-josefsson-rc4-test-vectors-02

Revision differences

Document history

Date Rev. By Action
2011-03-08
02 Cindy Morgan State changed to RFC Ed Queue from Approved-announcement sent.
2011-03-07
02 (System) IANA Action state changed to No IC from In Progress
2011-03-07
02 (System) IANA Action state changed to In Progress
2011-03-07
02 Amy Vezza IESG state changed to Approved-announcement sent
2011-03-07
02 Amy Vezza IESG has approved the document
2011-03-07
02 Amy Vezza Closed "Approve" ballot
2011-03-07
02 Amy Vezza Ballot has been issued
2011-03-07
02 Amy Vezza Approval announcement text regenerated
2011-03-07
02 Amy Vezza Ballot writeup text changed
2011-03-03
02 Cindy Morgan Removed from agenda for telechat
2011-03-03
02 Cindy Morgan State changed to Approved-announcement to be sent from IESG Evaluation.
2011-03-03
02 Alexey Melnikov [Ballot Position Update] New position, No Objection, has been recorded
2011-03-03
02 Dan Romascanu [Ballot Position Update] New position, No Objection, has been recorded
2011-03-03
02 Jari Arkko [Ballot Position Update] New position, No Objection, has been recorded
2011-03-03
02 Gonzalo Camarillo [Ballot Position Update] New position, No Objection, has been recorded
2011-03-02
02 Tim Polk [Ballot Position Update] New position, No Objection, has been recorded
2011-03-02
02 Russ Housley [Ballot Position Update] New position, No Objection, has been recorded
2011-03-02
02 Stewart Bryant [Ballot Position Update] New position, No Objection, has been recorded
2011-03-02
02 Lars Eggert [Ballot Position Update] New position, No Objection, has been recorded
2011-03-02
02 Adrian Farrel [Ballot Position Update] New position, No Objection, has been recorded
2011-03-01
02 Peter Saint-Andre [Ballot Position Update] New position, No Objection, has been recorded
2011-03-01
02 Robert Sparks [Ballot Position Update] New position, No Objection, has been recorded
2011-02-26
02 Sam Weiler Request for Last Call review by SECDIR Completed. Reviewer: Tom Yu.
2011-02-23
02 Sean Turner [Ballot Position Update] New position, Yes, has been recorded for Sean Turner
2011-02-23
02 Sean Turner Ballot has been issued
2011-02-23
02 Sean Turner Created "Approve" ballot
2011-02-22
02 Sean Turner State changed to IESG Evaluation from Waiting for AD Go-Ahead.
2011-02-22
02 (System) State changed to Waiting for AD Go-Ahead from In Last Call.
2011-02-03
02 Amanda Baber We understand that this document does not require any IANA actions.
2011-02-01
02 Sam Weiler Request for Last Call review by SECDIR is assigned to Tom Yu
2011-02-01
02 Sam Weiler Request for Last Call review by SECDIR is assigned to Tom Yu
2011-01-26
02 Sean Turner Placed on agenda for telechat - 2011-03-03
2011-01-26
02 Sean Turner Status Date has been changed to 2011-01-26 from None
2011-01-25
02 Cindy Morgan Last call sent
2011-01-25
02 Cindy Morgan
State changed to In Last Call from Last Call Requested.

The following Last Call Announcement was sent out:

From: The IESG
To: IETF-Announce
Reply-To: ietf@ietf.org …
State changed to In Last Call from Last Call Requested.

The following Last Call Announcement was sent out:

From: The IESG
To: IETF-Announce
Reply-To: ietf@ietf.org
Subject: Last Call:  (Test vectors for the stream cipher RC4) to Informational RFC


The IESG has received a request from an individual submitter to consider
the following document:
- 'Test vectors for the stream cipher RC4'
  as an Informational RFC

The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits
final comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the
ietf@ietf.org mailing lists by 2011-02-22. Exceptionally, comments may be
sent to iesg@ietf.org instead. In either case, please retain the
beginning of the Subject line to allow automated sorting.

The file can be obtained via
http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-josefsson-rc4-test-vectors/

IESG discussion can be tracked via
http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-josefsson-rc4-test-vectors/
2011-01-25
02 Sean Turner Last Call was requested
2011-01-25
02 Sean Turner State changed to Last Call Requested from Publication Requested.
2011-01-25
02 (System) Ballot writeup text was added
2011-01-25
02 (System) Last call text was added
2011-01-25
02 (System) Ballot approval text was added
2011-01-25
02 Cindy Morgan
(1.a) Who is the Document Shepherd for this document? Has the
Document Shepherd personally reviewed this version of the document
and, in particular, does he …
(1.a) Who is the Document Shepherd for this document? Has the
Document Shepherd personally reviewed this version of the document
and, in particular, does he or she believe this version is ready
for forwarding to the IESG for publication?

Simon Josefsson  is the Document Shepherd. He
reviewed the document and believes it is ready.

(1.b) Has the document had adequate review both from key members of
the interested community and others? Does the Document Shepherd
have any concerns about the depth or breadth of the reviews that
have been performed?

The test vectors in the document have been reviewed and confirmed by
several people (including independently by the two author) for several
implementations.

The draft has been brought to the attention of the CFRG:
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/cfrg/current/threads.html#02757
As a result, David McGrew's security consideration text has been added.

While the number of people that have reviewed the document isn't
extensive, the quality of the reviews makes us feel confident that the
document is good to go.

(1.c) Does the Document Shepherd have concerns that the document
needs more review from a particular or broader perspective, e.g.,
security, operational complexity, someone familiar with AAA,
internationalization or XML?

None. The document doesn't define a protocol, it just provides test
vectors, so the essential review is to make sure there aren't errors
in the test vectors. That should be covered already.

(1.d) Does the Document Shepherd have any specific concerns or
issues with this document that the Responsible Area Director
and/or the IESG should be aware of? For example, perhaps he or
she is uncomfortable with certain parts of the document, or has
concerns whether there really is a need for it. In any event, if
the interested community has discussed those issues and has
indicated that it still wishes to advance the document, detail
those concerns here.

One concern is that maybe not all potential RC4 cut-off points are
included, however we did as best we could to identify practically used
cut-off points and provide test vectors for them. If other cut-off
points are needed in the future, the document could be updated.

Otherwise it is a fairly non-controversial document.

(1.e) How solid is the consensus of the interested community behind
this document? Does it represent the strong concurrence of a few
individuals, with others being silent, or does the interested
community as a whole understand and agree with it?

I believe most people in the crypto community agree with the need for
test vectors for crypto algorithms even if they didn't take time to
double check the test vectors themselves.

(1.f) Has anyone threatened an appeal or otherwise indicated extreme
discontent? If so, please summarise the areas of conflict in
separate email messages to the Responsible Area Director. (It
should be in a separate email because this questionnaire is
entered into the ID Tracker.)

No.

(1.g) Has the Document Shepherd personally verified that the
document satisfies all ID nits? (See the Internet-Drafts Checklist
and http://tools.ietf.org/tools/idnits/). Boilerplate checks are not
enough; this check needs to be thorough. Has the document met all
formal review criteria it needs to, such as the MIB Doctor, media
type and URI type reviews?

It passes the idnits checks with 6 warnings about "weird spacing" due
to hex encoded data.

I noted one issue when doing this check: the acronym LSB should be
expanded on first use. This could be fixed in AUTH48.

(1.h) Has the document split its references into normative and
informative? Are there normative references to documents that are
not ready for advancement or are otherwise in an unclear state?
If such normative references exist, what is the strategy for their
completion? Are there normative references that are downward
references, as described in [RFC3967]? If so, list these downward
references to support the Area Director in the Last Call procedure
for them [RFC3967].

The is only one normative reference:

[RC4] Schneier, B., "Applied Cryptography Second Edition:
protocols algorithms and source in code in C. John Wiley
and Sons, New York, NY", 1996.

This reference is a normative reference in RFC 4345 (a Standards Track
document), and likely other documents too.

The informative reference contains external links, and there is always
concern about stability of them but I believe they provide useful
information.

(1.i) Has the Document Shepherd verified that the document IANA
consideration section exists and is consistent with the body of
the document? If the document specifies protocol extensions, are
reservations requested in appropriate IANA registries? Are the
IANA registries clearly identified? If the document creates a new
registry, does it define the proposed initial contents of the
registry and an allocation procedure for future registrations?
Does it suggested a reasonable name for the new registry? See
[I-D.narten-iana-considerations-rfc2434bis]. If the document
describes an Expert Review process has Shepherd conferred with the
Responsible Area Director so that the IESG can appoint the needed
Expert during the IESG Evaluation?

There is no IANA considerations.

(1.j) Has the Document Shepherd verified that sections of the
document that are written in a formal language, such as XML code,
BNF rules, MIB definitions, etc., validate correctly in an
automated checker?

No formal languages are used.

(1.k) The IESG approval announcement includes a Document
Announcement Write-Up. Please provide such a Document
Announcement Writeup? Recent examples can be found in the
"Action" announcements for approved documents. The approval
announcement contains the following sections:

Technical Summary

This document contains test vectors for the stream cipher RC4.

Working Group Summary

This is not the product of a WG.

Document Quality

There are multiple implementations that confirmed these test vectors.
2011-01-25
02 Cindy Morgan Draft added in state Publication Requested
2011-01-25
02 Cindy Morgan [Note]: 'Simon Josefsson (simon@josefsson.org) is the Document Shepherd.' added
2011-01-23
02 (System) New version available: draft-josefsson-rc4-test-vectors-02.txt
2010-12-31
02 (System) Document has expired
2010-06-29
01 (System) New version available: draft-josefsson-rc4-test-vectors-01.txt
2010-05-03
00 (System) New version available: draft-josefsson-rc4-test-vectors-00.txt