One document matched: draft-schaad-dhsign-00.txt




INTERNET DRAFT                                       November 11, 1998 
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                    Diffie-Hellman Signing Algorithm 
                      <draft-schaad-dhsign-00.txt> 
 
Status of this Memo 
 
This document is an Internet-Draft.  Internet-Drafts are working 
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ftp.isi.edu (US West Coast). 
 
Abstract 
 
This document describes a method for producing a signature from a 
Diffie-Hellman key pair.  This behavior is needed for such operations as 
creating a signature of a PKCS #10 certification request.  This document 
describes two different flavors of the signature algorithm, one using a 
D-H key from a CA and the other using a temporary key created by the 
signer. 
 
1. Introduction 
 
PKCS #10 [RFC2314] defines a syntax for certification requests. It 
assumes that the public key being requested for certification 
corresponds to an algorithm that is capable of signing/encrypting. 
Diffie-Hellman (DH) is a key agreement algorithm and as such cannot be 
directly used for signing or encryption. 
 
This document describes two new signing algorithms using the Diffie-
Hellman key agreement process to provide a shared secret as the basis of 
the signature.  In the first signature algorithm, the signature is 
constructed for a specific recipient/verifier by using a public key of 
that verifier.  In the second signature algorithm, the signature is 
constructed for arbitrary verifiers.  This is done by creating an 
appropriate D-H key pair and encoding them as part of the signature 
value. 
 
2. Terminology 




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The following definitions will be used in this document 
 
DH certificate = a certificate whose SubjectPublicKey is a DH public 
value and is signed with any signature algorithm (e.g. rsa or dsa). 
                  
3. DH Signature Process 
 
The steps for creating a DH signature are: 
   
1. An entity (E) chooses the group parameters for a DH key agreement. In 
   many cases this is done simply by selecting the group parameters from 
   a certificate for the recipient of the signature process (static DH 
   signatures) but they may be computed for other methods (ephemeral DH 
   signatures). 
 
   In the ephemeral DH signature scheme, a temporary DH key-pair is 
   generated using the group parameters.  In the static DH signature 
   scheme, a certificate with the correct group parameters has to be 
   available. Let these common DH parameters be g and p; and let this DH 
   key-pair be known as the CA key pair (CApub and CApriv). 
    
   CApub = g^x mod p          (where x=CApriv, the private DH value) 
 
2. The entity generates a DH public/private key-pair using the 
   parameters from step 1. 
 
    For an entity E: 
      Epriv = DH private value = y 
      Epub  = DH public value  = g^y mod p 
 
3. The signature computation process will then consist of: 
 
  a) The value to be signed is obtained. (For a RFC2314 object, the 
     value is the DER encoded certificationRequestInfo field represented 
     as an octet string.) This will be the `text' referred to in 
     [RFC2104], the data to which HMAC-SHA1 is applied. 
 
  b) A shared DH secret is computed, as follows, 
          shared secret = Kec = g^xy mod p 
 
     [This is done by the entity E as g^(y.CApub) and by the CA as 
     g^(x.Epub), where CApub is retrieved from the CA's DH certificate 
     and Epub is retrieved from the actual certification request. ] 
 
  c) A temporary key K is derived from the shared secret Kec as follows: 
        K = SHA1(LeadingInfo | Kec | TrailingInfo) 
      where "|" means concatenation. 
 




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  d) Compute HMAC-SHA1 over the data `text' as per [RFC2104] as: 
         SHA1(K XOR opad, SHA1(K XOR ipad, text)) 
 
       where, 
          opad (outer pad) = the byte 0x36 repeated 64 times 
       and 
         ipad (inner pad) = the byte 0x5C repeated 64 times. 
 
       Namely, 
       (1) Append zeros to the end of K to create a 64 byte string 
            (e.g., if K is of length 16 bytes it will be appended with 
            48 zero bytes 0x00). 
       (2) XOR (bitwise exclusive-OR) the 64 byte string computed in 
            step (1) with ipad. 
       (3) Append the data stream `text' to the 64 byte string 
            resulting from step (2). 
       (4) Apply SHA1 to the stream generated in step (3). 
       (5) XOR (bitwise exclusive-OR) the 64 byte string computed in 
            step (1) with opad. 
       (6) Append the SHA1 result from step (4) to the 64 byte string 
            resulting from step (5). 
       (7) Apply SHA1 to the stream generated in step (6) and output 
            the result. 
 
       Sample code is also provided in [RFC2104]. 
 
   e) The output of (d) is encoded as a BIT STRING (the Signature 
      value). 
 
The signature verification process requires the CA to carry out steps 
(a) through (d) and then simply compare the result of step (d) with what 
it received as the signature component. If they match then the following 
can be concluded: 
 
    1) The Entity possesses the private key corresponding to the public 
key in the certification request because it needed the private key to 
calculate the shared secret; and 
    2) For the static signature scheme, that only the CA, the entity 
sent the request to could actually verify the request because the CA 
would require its own private key to compute the same shared secret. 
This protects from rogue CAs. 
 
4. Static DH Signature 
 
In the static DH Signature scheme, the public key used in the key 
agreement process of step 2 is obtained from the entity that will be 
verifying the signature (i.e. the recipient).  In the case of a 
certification request, the public key would normally be extracted from a 
certificate issued to the CA with the appropriate key parameters. 




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The values used in step 3c for "LeadingInfo" and the "TrailingInfo" are: 
 
     LeadingInfo ::= Subject Distinguished Name from certificate 
     TrailingInfo ::= Issuer Distinguished Name from certificate 
 
The ASN.1 structures associated with the static Diffie-Hellman signature 
algorithms are: 
 
     id-dhSig-static-HMAC-SHA1 ::= <TBD> 
      
     DhSigStatic ::= SEQUENCE { 
         issuerAndSerial      IssuerAndSerialNumber OPTIONAL, 
         hashValue                 MessageDigest 
     } 
 
     issuerAndSerial is the issuer name and serial number of the 
     certificate from which the public key was obtained.  The 
     issuerAndSerial field is omitted if the public key did not come 
     from a certificate. 
      
     hashValue contains the result of the SHA-1 HMAC operation in step 
     3d. 
      
DhSigStatic is encoded as a BIT STRING and is the signature value (i.e. 
encodes the above sequence instead of the raw output from 3d). 
 
 
5. Ephemeral DH Signature 
  
There are occasions when it is difficult to obtain the CA's certificate, 
or the group parameters of the CA are inappropriate.  In these cases the 
following variation on what is presented in section 3 can be used. 
 
A temporary Diffie-Hellman key pair is generated using the same group 
parameters as the DH key pair to be used in the signing operation.  The 
private half of the key pair is encoded as part of the signature value 
and sent in the clear to be used by the signature verifier. The public 
half of the key pair is not transmitted, as it provides no useful 
information to the signature verifier.  After the signature has been 
performed the temporary key pair is discarded. 
 
The values used in step 3c for "LeadingInfo" and the "TrailingInfo" are: 
 
     LeadingInfo ::= DER encoded p 
     TrailingInfo ::= DER encoded g 
 
The ASN.1 structures used for ephemeral DH signatures are: 
 




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     id-dhSig-ephermal-HMAC-SHA1 ::= <TBD> 
      
     DhSigEphemeral ::== SEQUENCE { 
         domainParameters     DomainParams, 
         tempPrivateKey       DHPrivateKey, 
         hashValue            MessageDigest 
     } 
      
     DomainParameters ::= SEQUENCE { 
         p       INTEGER, -- odd prime, p=jq +1 
         g       INTEGER, -- generator, g 
         q       INTEGER, -- factor of p-1 
         j       INTEGER OPTIONAL, -- subgroup factor 
         validationParms  ValidationParms OPTIONAL 
     } 
 
     ValidationParms ::= SEQUENCE { 
         seed             BIT STRING, 
         pgenCounter      INTEGER 
     } 
      
The fields of type DomainParameters have the following meanings: 
 
     p identifies the prime p defining the Galois field; 
      
     g specifies the generator of the mutiplicative subgroup of order g; 
      
     q specifies the prime factor of p-1; 
      
     j optionally specifies the value that satisfies the equation p=jq+1 
     to support the optional verification of group parameters; 
      
     seed optionally specifies the bit string parameter used as the seed 
     for the system parameter generation process; and 
 
     pgenCounter optionally specifies the integer value output as part 
     of the of the system parameter prime generation process. 
 
     If either of the parameter generation components (pgencounter or 
     seed) is provided, the other must be present as well.  The presence 
     of q, j, seed and pgenCounter can be used to do parameter 
     validation.  The validation procedures can be found in [FIPS-186] 
     Appendix 2. 
 
     DHPrivateKey ::= INTEGER 
 
DhSigEphermeral is DER encoded as a BIT STRING and is the signature 
value. 
 




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5. Security Considerations 
      
All the security in this system is provided by the secrecy of the 
private keying material. If either sender or recipient private keys are 
disclosed, all messages sent or received using that key are compromised. 
Similarly, loss of the private key results in an inability to read 
messages sent using that key. 
 
Selection of parameters can be of paramount importance.  In the 
selection of parameters once must take into account the community/group 
of entities that one wishes to be able to communicate with.  In choosing 
a set of parameters one must also be sure to avoid small groups.  [FIPS-
186] Appendixes 2 and 3 contain information on the selection of 
parameters.  The paractices outlined in this document will lead to 
better selection of parameters. 
 
6. Open Issues 
 
Need to add some text about the validations of parameters that MUST be 
done as part of the ephemeral signature validation process.  (Minimum 
would be checks on value of 1 < x < q-2) 
 
7. References 
 
[FIPS-186]  Federal Information Processing Standards Publication (FIPS  
            PUB) 186, "Digital Signature Standard", 1994 May 19. 
 
[RFC2314]   B. Kaliski, "PKCS #10: Certification Request Syntax v1.5", 
            RFC 2314, October 1997 
 
[RFC2104]   H. Krawczyk, M. Bellare, R. Canetti, 
            "HMAC: Keyed-Hashing for Message Authentication", 
            RFC 2104, February 1997. 
 
 
8. Author's Addresses 
 
Hemma Prafullchandra 
XETI Inc. 
5150 El Camino Real, #A-32 
Los Altos, CA 94022 
(640) 694-6812 
hemma@xeti.com 
 
Jim Schaad 
Microsoft Corporation 
One Microsoft Way 
Redmond, WA 98052-6399 




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(425) 936-3101 
jimsch@microsoft.com 
 
 
Appendix A.  ASN.1 Module 
 
DH-Sign DEFINITIONS IMPLICIT TAGS ::= 
 
BEGIN 
 
--EXPORTS ALL  
-- The types and values defined in this module are exported for use in 
-- the other ASN.1 modules. Other applications may use them for their 
-- own purposes. 
 
IMPORTS 
    IssuerAndSerialNumber, MessageDigest 
     FROM CryptographicMessageSyntax { iso(1) member-body(2) 
          us(840) rsadsi(113549) pkcs(1) pkcs-9(9) smime(16) 
          modules(0) cms(1) } 
 
     id-dhSig-static-HMAC-SHA1 ::= <TBD> 
      
     DhSigStatic ::= SEQUENCE { 
         issuerAndSerial      IssuerAndSerialNumber OPTIONAL, 
         hashValue            MessageDigest 
     } 
      
     id-dhSig-ephermal-HMAC-SHA1 ::= <TBD> 
      
     DhSigEphemeral ::== SEQUENCE { 
         domainParameters     DomainParams, 
         tempprivateKey       DHPrivateKey, 
         hashValue            MessageDigest 
     } 
      
     DomainParameters ::= SEQUENCE { 
         p       INTEGER, -- odd prime, p=jq +1 
         g       INTEGER, -- generator, g 
         q       INTEGER, -- factor of p-1 
         j       INTEGER OPTIONAL, -- subgroup factor 
         validationParms  ValidationParms OPTIONAL } 
           
     ValidationParms ::= SEQUENCE { 
         seed             BIT STRING, 
         pgenCounter      INTEGER } 
      
     DHPrivateKey ::= INTEGER 
 
END 



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