Strength in Complexity?

[Paul Hoffman]

At 8:28 PM -0400 7/1/08, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
>pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann) writes:
>>  "Perry E. Metzger" <perry at piermont.com> writes:
>>
>>>No. In fact, it is about as far from the truth as I've ever seen. No real
>>>expert would choose to deliberately make a protocol more complicated.
>>
>>  IPsec.  Anything to do with PKI.  XMLdsig.  Gimme a few minutes and I can
>>  provide a list as long as your arm.  Protocol designers *love* complexity.
>>  The more complex and awkward they can make a protocol, the better it has to
>>  be.
>
>The problem, Peter, is that people who don't know you may mistake your
>sarcasm for agreement with misconception in the article Arshad quoted.
>

The quote from the article was:

"There are, of course, obstacles that must still be overcome by EKMI 
proponents. For example, the proposed components are somewhat simple 
by design, which concerns some encryption purists who prefer more 
complex protocols, on the logic that they're more difficult to break 
into."

It jumps from "components" to "protocols". In general, "encryption 
purists" like simpler algorithms. OTOH, when "encryption purists" get 
involved in protocol design, the protocols usually become complex to 
the point of opacity.

So, I agree with Peter that that article is probably correct about protocols.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

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