Last Call Review of draft-eastlake-fnv-29
review-eastlake-fnv-29-secdir-lc-ladd-2024-10-11-00

Request Review of draft-eastlake-fnv
Requested revision No specific revision (document currently at 29)
Type Last Call Review
Team Security Area Directorate (secdir)
Deadline 2024-10-22
Requested 2024-10-01
Authors Glenn Fowler , Landon Curt Noll , Kiem-Phong Vo , Donald E. Eastlake 3rd , Tony Hansen
I-D last updated 2024-10-11
Completed reviews Genart Last Call review of -29 by Elwyn B. Davies
Secdir Last Call review of -29 by Watson Ladd
Artart Last Call review of -28 by Barry Leiba (diff)
Assignment Reviewer Watson Ladd
State Completed
Request Last Call review on draft-eastlake-fnv by Security Area Directorate Assigned
Posted at https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/secdir/AcNuChsy8e1Zz7ZlUFCnH9Am0Ks
Reviewed revision 29
Result Not ready
Completed 2024-10-11
review-eastlake-fnv-29-secdir-lc-ladd-2024-10-11-00
Dear all,

I have reviewed this document as part of the security directorate's
ongoing effort to review all IETF documents being processed by the
IESG. These comments were written primarily for the benefit of the
security area directors. Document editors and WG chairs should treat
these comments just like any other last call comments.

The summary of the review is Not Ready.

The draft does a good job of describing the FNV-1a hash function.
However, it falls short on recommending when it should be used and
when it should not be. Python had to change away from FNV-1a due to
collision attacks leading to DoS (https://peps.python.org/pep-0456/,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vdrab3sB7MU). The offset is
insufficient to solve this problem. FNV-1a is slower than other hash
functions with better guarantees of equidistribution, taking one
multiply per byte and is hard to parallelize. I think this draft needs
to say these things, and advise against usage in new applications and
protocols.

Sincerely,
Watson Ladd

-- 
Astra mortemque praestare gradatim