Skip to main content

EdDSA for OpenPGP
draft-koch-eddsa-for-openpgp-01

The information below is for an old version of the document.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Expired".
Author Werner Koch
Last updated 2014-09-08
RFC stream (None)
Formats
Stream Stream state (No stream defined)
Consensus boilerplate Unknown
RFC Editor Note (None)
IESG IESG state I-D Exists
Telechat date (None)
Responsible AD (None)
Send notices to (None)
draft-koch-eddsa-for-openpgp-01
Network Working Group                                            W. Koch
Internet-Draft                                                  g10 Code
Updates: 4880 (if approved)                            September 8, 2014
Intended status: Informational
Expires: March 12, 2015

                           EdDSA for OpenPGP
                    draft-koch-eddsa-for-openpgp-01

Abstract

   This specification extends OpenPGP with the EdDSA public key
   algorithm and describes the use of curve Ed25519.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on March 12, 2015.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2014 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
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Koch                     Expires March 12, 2015                 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft              EdDSA for OpenPGP             September 2014

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Supported Curves  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   3.  Point Format  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  Encoding of Public and Private Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   5.  Message Encoding  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   6.  Curve OID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   7.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   8.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   9.  Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   10. Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   Appendix A.  Test vectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     A.1.  Sample key  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     A.2.  Sample signature  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7

1.  Introduction

   The OpenPGP specification in [RFC4880] defines the RSA, Elgamal, and
   DSA public key algorithms.  [RFC6637] adds support for Elliptic Curve
   Cryptography and specifies the ECDSA and ECDH algorithms.  Due to
   patent reasons no point compression was defined.

   This document specifies how to use the EdDSA public key signature
   algorithm [ED25519] with the OpenPGP standard.  It defines a new
   signature algorithm named EdDSA and specifies how to use the Ed25519
   curve with EdDSA.  This algorithm uses a custom point compression
   method.  There are three main advantages of the EdDSA algorithm: It
   does not require the use of a unique random number for each
   signature, there are no padding or truncation issues as with ECDSA,
   and it is more resilient to side-channel attacks.

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].

2.  Supported Curves

   This document references the Curve "Ed25519" which is the Edwards
   form of "Curve25519" and specified in the same paper as the "EdDSA"
   algorithm ([ED25519]).

   Other curves may be used by using a specific OID for the curve and
   its EdDSA parameters.

   The following public key algorithm IDs are added to expand section
   9.1 of [RFC4880], "Public-Key Algorithms":

Koch                     Expires March 12, 2015                 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft              EdDSA for OpenPGP             September 2014

                  +-------+-----------------------------+
                  | ID    | Description of Algorithm    |
                  +-------+-----------------------------+
                  | TBD1  | EdDSA public key algorithm  |
                  +-------+-----------------------------+

   Compliant applications MUST support EdDSA with the curve Ed25519.
   Applications MAY support other curves as long as a dedicated OID for
   using that curve with EdDSA is used.

3.  Point Format

   The EdDSA algorithm defines a specific point compression format.  To
   indicate the use of this compression format and to make sure that the
   key can be represented in the Multiprecision Internet (MPI) format of
   [RFC4880] the octet string specifying the point is prefixed with the
   octet 0x40.  This encoding is an extension of the encoding given in
   [RFC6637] which uses 0x04 to indicate an uncompressed point.

   For example, the length of a public key for the curve Ed25519 is 263
   bit: 7 bit to represent the 0x40 prefix octet and 32 octets for the
   native value of the public key.

4.  Encoding of Public and Private Keys

   The following algorithm specific packets are added to Section 5.5.2
   of [RFC4880], "Public-Key Packet Formats", to support EdDSA.

   Algorithm-Specific Fields for EdDSA keys:

   o  a variable length field containing a curve OID, formatted as
      follows:

      *  a one-octet size of the following field; values 0 and 0xFF are
         reserved for future extensions,

      *  octets representing a curve OID, defined in Section 6.

   o  MPI of an EC point representing a public key Q as described under
      Point Format above.

   The following algorithm specific packets are added to Section 5.5.3
   of [RFC4880], "Secret-Key Packet Formats", to support EdDSA.

   Algorithm-Specific Fields for EdDSA keys:

   o  an MPI of an integer representing the secret key, which is a
      scalar of the public EC point.

Koch                     Expires March 12, 2015                 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft              EdDSA for OpenPGP             September 2014

   The version 4 packet format MUST be used.

5.  Message Encoding

   Section 5.2.3 of [RFC4880], "Version 4 Signature Packet Format"
   specifies formats.  To support EdDSA no change is required, the MPIs
   representing the R and S value are encoded as MPIs in the same way as
   done for the DSA and ECDSA algorithms; in particular the Algorithm-
   Specific Fields for an EdDSA signature are:

    - MPI of EdDSA value r.

    - MPI of EdDSA value s.

   Note that the compressed version of R and S as specified for EdDSA
   ([ED25519]) is used.

   The version 3 signature format MUST NOT be used with EdDSA.

   Although that algorithm allows arbitrary data as input, its use with
   OpenPGP requires that a digest of the message is used as input.  See
   section 5.2.4 of [RFC4880], "Computing Signatures" for details.
   Truncation of the resulting digest is never applied; the resulting
   digest value is used verbatim as input to the EdDSA algorithm.

6.  Curve OID

   The EdDSA key parameter curve OID is an array of octets that defines
   a named curve.  The table below specifies the exact sequence of bytes
   for each named curve referenced in this document:

   +------------------------+------+------------------------+----------+
   | OID                    | Len  | Encoding in hex format | Name     |
   +------------------------+------+------------------------+----------+
   | 1.3.6.1.4.1.11591.15.1 | 9    | 2B 06 01 04 01 DA 47   | Ed25519  |
   |                        |      | 0F 01                  |          |
   +------------------------+------+------------------------+----------+

   See [RFC6637] for a description of the OID encoding given in the
   second and third columns.

7.  Security Considerations

   The security considerations of [RFC4880] apply accordingly.

   Although technically possible the use of EdDSA with digest algorithms
   weaker than SHA-256 (e.g.  SHA-1) is not suggested.

Koch                     Expires March 12, 2015                 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft              EdDSA for OpenPGP             September 2014

8.  IANA Considerations

   IANA is requested to assign an algorithm number from the OpenPGP
   Public-Key Algorithms range, or the "namespace" in the terminology of
   [RFC5226], that was created by [RFC4880].  See section 2.

           +-------+-----------------------------+------------+
           | ID    | Algorithm                   | Reference  |
           +-------+-----------------------------+------------+
           | TBD1  | EdDSA public key algorithm  | This doc   |
           +-------+-----------------------------+------------+

   [Notes to RFC-Editor: Please remove the table above on publication.
   It is desirable not to reuse old or reserved algorithms because some
   existing tools might print a wrong description.  A higher number is
   also an indication for a newer algorithm.  As of now 22 is the next
   free number.]

9.  Acknowledgments

   The author would like to acknowledge the help of the individuals who
   kindly voiced their opinions on the IETF OpenPGP and GnuPG mailing
   lists, in particular, the help of Andrey Jivsov, Jon Callas, and
   NIIBE Yutaka.

10.  Normative References

   [ED25519]  Bernstein, D., Duif, N., Lange, T., Schwabe, P., and B.
              Yang, "High-speed high-security signatures", Journal of
              Cryptographic Engineering Volume 2, Issue 2, pp. 77-89,
              September 2011,
              <http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13389-012-0027-1>.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC4880]  Callas, J., Donnerhacke, L., Finney, H., Shaw, D., and R.
              Thayer, "OpenPGP Message Format", RFC 4880, November 2007.

   [RFC5226]  Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an
              IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 5226,
              May 2008.

   [RFC6637]  Jivsov, A., "Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) in
              OpenPGP", RFC 6637, June 2012.

Koch                     Expires March 12, 2015                 [Page 5]
Internet-Draft              EdDSA for OpenPGP             September 2014

Appendix A.  Test vectors

   To help implementing this specification a non-normative example is
   given.  This example assumes that the algorithm id for EdDSA will be
   22.

A.1.  Sample key

   The secret key used for this example is:

   D: 1a8b1ff05ded48e18bf50166c664ab023ea70003d78d9e41f5758a91d850f8d2

   Note that this is the raw secret key as used as input to the EdDSA
   signing operation.  The key was created on 2014-08-19 14:28:27 and
   thus the fingerprint of the OpenPGP key is:

      C959 BDBA FA32 A2F8 9A15  3B67 8CFD E121 9796 5A9A

   The algorithm specific input parameters without the MPI length
   headers are:

   oid: 2b06010401da470f01

   q: 403f098994bdd916ed4053197934e4a87c80733a1280d62f8010992e43ee3b2406

   The entire public key packet is thus

      98 33 04 53 f3 5f 0b 16  09 2b 06 01 04 01 da 47
      0f 01 01 07 40 3f 09 89  94 bd d9 16 ed 40 53 19
      79 34 e4 a8 7c 80 73 3a  12 80 d6 2f 80 10 99 2e
      43 ee 3b 24 06

A.2.  Sample signature

   The signature is created using the sample key over the input data
   "OpenPGP" on 2015-09-16 12:24:53 and thus the input to the hash
   function is

   m: 4f70656e504750040016080006050255f95f9504ff0000000c

   using the SHA-256 hash algorithm yields this digest

   d: f6220a3f757814f4c2176ffbb68b00249cd4ccdc059c4b34ad871f30b1740280

   which is fed into the EdDSA signature function and yields this
   signature:

   r: 56f90cca98e2102637bd983fdb16c131dfd27ed82bf4dde5606e0d756aed3366

Koch                     Expires March 12, 2015                 [Page 6]
Internet-Draft              EdDSA for OpenPGP             September 2014

   s: d09c4fa11527f038e0f57f2201d82f2ea2c9033265fa6ceb489e854bae61b404

   Note that the MPI encoding rules require that the value of S needs to
   be prefixed with a 0x00 octet.  The entire signature packet is thus

      88 5e 04 00 16 08 00 06  05 02 55 f9 5f 95 00 0a
      09 10 8c fd e1 21 97 96  5a 9a f6 22 01 00 56 f9
      0c ca 98 e2 10 26 37 bd  98 3f db 16 c1 31 df d2
      7e d8 2b f4 dd e5 60 6e  0d 75 6a ed 33 66 01 00
      d0 9c 4f a1 15 27 f0 38  e0 f5 7f 22 01 d8 2f 2e
      a2 c9 03 32 65 fa 6c eb  48 9e 85 4b ae 61 b4 04

Author's Address

   Werner Koch
   g10 Code

   Email: wk@gnupg.org
   URI:   https://g10code.com

Koch                     Expires March 12, 2015                 [Page 7]