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Re: Arcfour & RC4





On Wednesday, March 09, 2005 12:49:09 -0800 Chris Lonvick <clonvick%cisco.com@localhost> wrote:

Hi,

I went to the IPR WG meeting on Monday and learned lots.  But enough about
me...

The current [TRANS] document references Arcfour as an acceptable
algorithm.  It also references RC4 in a somewhat oblique way as follows:

   The "arcfour" is the Arcfour stream cipher with 128 bit keys.  The
   Arcfour cipher is believed to be compatible with the RC4 cipher
   [SCHNEIER].  Arcfour (and RC4) has problems with weak keys, and
   should be used with caution.

The parts about RC4 sound editorial to me.  I also don't think that the
document should say that there is a "belief" in compatability; they either
are provably compatible, or the document should remain silent on that
point.

This is actually pretty standard boilerplate for this situation.

I see no reason to make this change.

-- Jeff



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