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Using ChaCha20-Poly1305 Authenticated Encryption in the Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS)
draft-ietf-curdle-cms-chacha20-poly1305-03

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 8103.
Author Russ Housley
Last updated 2016-11-24 (Latest revision 2016-10-28)
Replaces draft-housley-cms-chacha20-poly1305
RFC stream Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
Formats
Reviews
Additional resources Mailing list discussion
Stream WG state Submitted to IESG for Publication
Document shepherd Daniel Migault
Shepherd write-up Show Last changed 2016-11-01
IESG IESG state Became RFC 8103 (Proposed Standard)
Consensus boilerplate Yes
Telechat date (None)
Responsible AD Stephen Farrell
Send notices to "Daniel Migault" <daniel.migault@ericsson.com>
draft-ietf-curdle-cms-chacha20-poly1305-03
Internet-Draft                                                R. Housley
Intended status: Standards Track                          Vigil Security
Expires: 28 April 2017                                   28 October 2016

             Using ChaCha20-Poly1305 Authenticated Encryption
                 in the Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS)

             <draft-ietf-curdle-cms-chacha20-poly1305-03.txt>

Abstract

   This document describes the conventions for using ChaCha20-Poly1305
   Authenticated Encryption in the Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS).
   ChaCha20-Poly1305 is an authenticated encryption algorithm
   constructed of the ChaCha stream cipher and Poly1305 authenticator.

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
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   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 22 March 2017.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2016 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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   described in the Simplified BSD License.

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1.  Introduction

   This document specifies the conventions for using the
   ChaCha20-Poly1305 Authenticated Encryption as the content-
   authenticated-encryption algorithm with the Cryptographic Message
   Syntax (CMS) [CMS] authenticated-enveloped-data content type
   [AUTHENV].

   ChaCha [CHACHA] is a stream cipher developed by D. J. Bernstein in
   2008.  It is a refinement of Salsa20, which is one of the ciphers in
   the eSTREAM portfolio [ESTREAM].

   ChaCha20 is the 20-round variant of ChaCha; it requires a 256-bit key
   and a 96-bit nonce.  ChaCha20 is described in [FORIETF].

   Poly1305 [POLY1305] is a Wegman-Carter, one-time authenticator
   designed by D. J. Bernstein.  Poly1305 produces a 16-byte
   authentication tag; it requires a 256-bit, single-use key.  Poly1305
   is also described in [FORIETF].

   ChaCha20 and Poly1305 have been designed for high performance
   software implementations.  They can typically be implemented with few
   resources and inexpensive operations, making them suitable on a wide
   range of systems.  They have also been designed to minimize leakage
   of information through side channels.

1.1.  The ChaCha20 and Poly1305 AEAD Construction

   ChaCha20 and Poly1305 have been combined to create an Authenticated
   Encryption with Associated Data (AEAD) algorithm [AEAD].  This AEAD
   algorithm is often referred to as AEAD_CHACHA20_POLY1305, and it is
   described [FORIETF].

   AEAD_CHACHA20_POLY1305 accepts four inputs: a 256-bit key, a 96-bit
   nonce, an arbitrary length plaintext, and an arbitrary length
   additional authenticated data (AAD).  As the name implies, a nonce
   value cannot be used securely more than once with the same key.

   A high-level summary of AEAD_CHACHA20_POLY1305 authenticated
   encryption processing is:

      1) A 256-bit Poly1305 one-time key is generated from the input
         256-bit key and nonce using the procedure described in
         Section 2.6 of [FORIETF].

      2) The ChaCha20 encryption function is used to encrypt the
         plaintext, using the same 256-bit key and nonce, and with the
         initial counter set to 1.

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      3) The Poly1305 function is used with the Poly1305 key from
         step 1, and a buffer constructed as a concatenation of the AAD,
         padding1, the ciphertext, padding2, the length of the AAD in
         octets, and the length of the ciphertext in octets.  The
         padding fields contain up to 15 octets, with all bits set to
         zero, and the padding brings the total length of the buffer so
         far to an integral multiple of 16.  If the buffer length was
         already an integral multiple of 16 octets, then the padding
         field is zero octets.  The length fields contain 64-bit little-
         endian integers.

   AEAD_CHACHA20_POLY1305 produces ciphertext of the same length as the
   plaintext and a 128-bit authentication tag.

   AEAD_CHACHA20_POLY1305 authenticated decryption processing is similar
   to the encryption processing.  Of course, the roles of ciphertext and
   plaintext are reversed, so the ChaCha20 encryption function is
   applied to the ciphertext, producing the plaintext.  The Poly1305
   function is run over the AAD and the ciphertext, not the plaintext,
   and the resulting authentication tag is bitwise compared to the
   received authentication tag.  The message is authenticated if and
   only if the calculated and received authentication tags match.

1.2.  Terminology

   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 RFC 2119 [STDWORDS].

1.3.  ASN.1

   CMS values are generated using ASN.1 [X680], which uses the Basic
   Encoding Rules (BER) and the Distinguished Encoding Rules (DER)
   [X690].

2.  Automated Key Management

   The reuse of an AEAD_CHACHA20_POLY1305 nonce value with the same key
   destroys the security guarantees.  I can be extremely difficult to
   use a statically configured AEAD_CHACHA20_POLY1305 key and never
   repeat a nonce value.  For safety's sake, implementations MUST use an
   automated key management system [KEYMGMT].

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   The CMS authenticated-enveloped-data content type supports four
   general key management techniques:

      Key Transport:  the content-authenticated-encryption key is
         encrypted in the recipient's public key;

      Key Agreement:  the recipient's public key and the sender's
         private key are used to generate a pairwise symmetric key, then
         the content-authenticated-encryption key is encrypted in the
         pairwise symmetric key;

      Symmetric Key-Encryption Keys:  the content-authenticated-
         encryption key is encrypted in a previously distributed
         symmetric key-encryption key; and

      Passwords:  the content-authenticated-encryption key is encrypted
         in a key-encryption key that is derived from a password or
         other shared secret value.

   All of these key management techniques meet the automated key
   management system requirement as long as a fresh content-
   authenticated-encryption key is generated for the protection of each
   content.  Note that some of these key management techniques use one
   key-encryption key to encrypt more than one content-authenticated-
   encryption key during the system life cycle.  As long as fresh
   content-authenticated-encryption key is used each time,
   AEAD_CHACHA20_POLY1305 can be used safely with the CMS authenticated-
   enveloped-data content type.

   In addition to these four general key management techniques, CMS
   supports other key management techniques.  See Section 6.2.5 of
   [CMS].  Since the properties of these key management techniques are
   unknown, no statement can be made about whether these key management
   techniques meet the automated key management system requirement.
   Designers and implementers must perform their own analysis if one of
   these other key management techniques is supported.

3.  Using the AEAD_CHACHA20_POLY1305 Algorithm with AuthEnvelopedData

   This section specifies the conventions employed by CMS
   implementations that support content authenticated encryption using
   the AEAD_CHACHA20_POLY1305 algorithm.

   Content authenticated encryption algorithm identifiers are located in
   the AuthEnvelopedData EncryptedContentInfo contentEncryptionAlgorithm
   field.

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   Content authenticated encryption algorithms are used to encipher the
   content located in the AuthEnvelopedData EncryptedContentInfo
   encryptedContent field and to provide the message authentication code
   for the AuthEnvelopedData mac field.  Note that the message
   authentication code provides integrity protection for both the
   AuthEnvelopedData authAttrs and the AuthEnvelopedData
   EncryptedContentInfo encryptedContent.

   Neither the plaintext content nor the optional AAD inputs need to be
   padded prior to invoking the AEAD_CHACHA20_POLY1305 algorithm.

   There is one algorithm identifiers for the AEAD_CHACHA20_POLY1305
   algorithm:

      id-alg-AEADChaCha20Poly1305 OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::=
          { iso(1) member-body(2) us(840) rsadsi(113549) pkcs(1)
            pkcs9(9) smime(16) alg(3) TBD1 }

   The AlgorithmIdentifier parameters field MUST be present, and the
   parameters field must contain a AEADChaCha20Poly1305Nonce:

      AEADChaCha20Poly1305Nonce ::= OCTET STRING (SIZE(12))

   The AEADChaCha20Poly1305Nonce contains a 12-octet nonce.  With the
   CMS, the content-authenticated-encryption key is normally used for a
   single content.  Within the scope of any content-authenticated-
   encryption key, the nonce value MUST be unique.  That is, the set of
   nonce values used with any given key MUST NOT contain any duplicate
   values.

4.  S/MIME Capabilities

   {{{ This can be written once the Object Identifier is assigned. }}}

5.  IANA Considerations

   IANA is requested to add the following entry in the SMI Security for
   S/MIME Algorithms (1.2.840.113549.1.9.16.3) registry:

      TBD1   id-alg-AEADChaCha20Poly1305       [This Document]

   IANA is requested to add the following entry in the SMI Security for
   S/MIME Module Identifier (1.2.840.113549.1.9.16.0) registry:

      TBD2   id-mod-CMS-AEADChaCha20Poly1305   [This Document]

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6.  Security Considerations

   The CMS AuthEnvelopedData provides all of the tools needed to avoid
   reuse of the same nonce value under the same key.  Automated key
   management is discussed in Section 2.

   When using AEAD_CHACHA20_POLY1305, the resulting ciphertext is always
   the same size as the original plaintext.   Some other mechanism needs
   to be used in conjunction with AEAD_CHACHA20_POLY1305 if disclosure
   of the size of the plaintext is a concern.

   The amount of encrypted data possible in a single invocation of
   AEAD_CHACHA20_POLY1305 is 2^32-1 blocks of 64 octets each, because of
   the size of the block counter field in the ChaCha20 block function.
   This gives a total of 247,877,906,880 octets, which likely to be
   sufficient to handle the size of any CMS content type.  Note that
   ciphertext length field in the authentication buffer will accomodate
   2^64 octets, which is much larger than necessary.

   The AEAD_CHACHA20_POLY1305 construction is a novel composition of
   ChaCha20 and Poly1305.  A security analysis of this composition is
   given in [PROCTER].

   Implementations must randomly generate content-authenticated-
   encryption keys.  The use of inadequate pseudo-random number
   generators (PRNGs) to generate cryptographic keys can result in
   little or no security.  An attacker may find it much easier to
   reproduce the PRNG environment that produced the keys, searching the
   resulting small set of possibilities, rather than brute force
   searching the whole key space.  The generation of quality random
   numbers is difficult.  RFC 4086 [RANDOM] offers important guidance in
   this area.

7.  Acknowledgements

   Thanks to Jim Schaad and Daniel Migault for their review and
   insightful comments.

8.  Normative References

   [AUTHENV]  Housley, R., "Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS)
              Authenticated-Enveloped-Data Content Type", RFC 5083,
              November 2007.

   [CMS]      Housley, R., "Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS)", RFC
              5652,  September 2009.

   [FORIETF]  Nir, Y. and A. Langley, "ChaCha20 and Poly1305 for IETF

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              Protocols", RFC 7539, May 2015.

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

   [X680]     ITU-T, "Information technology -- Abstract Syntax Notation
              One (ASN.1): Specification of basic notation", ITU-T
              Recommendation X.680, 2015.

   [X690]     ITU-T, "Information technology -- ASN.1 encoding rules:
              Specification of Basic Encoding Rules (BER), Canonical
              Encoding Rules (CER) and Distinguished Encoding Rules
              (DER)", ITU-T Recommendation X.690, 2015.

9.  Informative References

   [AEAD]     McGrew, D., "An Interface and Algorithms for Authenticated
              Encryption", RFC 5116, January 2008.

   [CHACHA]   Bernstein, D., "ChaCha, a variant of Salsa20", January
              2008,
              <http://cr.yp.to/chacha/chacha-20080128.pdf>.

   [ESTREAM]  Babbage, S., DeCanniere, C., Cantenaut, A., Cid, C.,
              Gilbert, H., Johansson, T., Parker, M., Preneel, B.,
              Rijmen, V., and M. Robshaw, "The eSTREAM Portfolio
              (rev. 1)", September 2008,
              <http://www.ecrypt.eu.org/stream/finallist.html>.

   [KEYMGMT]  Bellovin, S. and R. Housley, "Guidelines for Cryptographic
              Key Management", BCP 107, RFC 4107, June 2005.

   [POLY1305] Bernstein, D., "The Poly1305-AES message-authentication
              code.", March 2005,
              <http://cr.yp.to/mac/poly1305-20050329.pdf>.

   [PROCTER]  Procter, G., "A Security Analysis of the Composition of
              ChaCha20 and Poly1305", August 2014,
              <http://eprint.iacr.org/2014/613.pdf>.

   [RANDOM]   Eastlake, D., Schiller, J., and S. Crocker, "Randomness
              Recommendations for Security", BCP 106, RFC 4086, June
              2005.

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Appendix:  ASN.1 Module

   CMS-AEADChaCha20Poly1305
       { iso(1) member-body(2) us(840) rsadsi(113549) pkcs(1)
         pkcs-9(9) smime(16) modules(0) TBD2 }

   DEFINITIONS IMPLICIT TAGS ::= BEGIN

   IMPORTS
      CONTENT-ENCRYPTION
      FROM AlgorithmInformation-2009
          { iso(1) identified-organization(3) dod(6) internet(1)
            security(5) mechanisms(5) pkix(7) id-mod(0)
            id-mod-algorithmInformation-02(58) };

   -- EXPORTS All

   AEADContentEncryptionAlgs CONTENT-ENCRYPTION ::=
       { cea-AEADChaCha20Poly1305, ... }

   cea-AEADChaCha20Poly1305 CONTENT-ENCRYPTION ::= {
       IDENTIFIER id-alg-AEADChaCha20Poly1305
       PARAMS TYPE AEADChaCha20Poly1305Nonce ARE required
       SMIME-CAPS { IDENTIFIED BY id-alg-AEADChaCha20Poly1305 } }

   id-alg-AEADChaCha20Poly1305 OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::=
       { iso(1) member-body(2) us(840) rsadsi(113549) pkcs(1)
         pkcs9(9) smime(16) alg(3) TBD1 }

   AEADChaCha20Poly1305Nonce ::= OCTET STRING (SIZE(12))

   END

Author's Addresses

   Russell Housley
   Vigil Security, LLC
   918 Spring Knoll Drive
   Herndon, VA 20170
   USA

   EMail: housley@vigilsec.com

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