Re: SSH in ECC Internet Draft

[Nicolas Williams <Nicolas.Williams%sun.com@localhost>]

On Sat, Oct 07, 2006 at 02:48:52AM -0400, der Mouse wrote:
> >> Why is there a hard limit on the size of a list of curves,
> >> especially a limit that's a magic number like 12?  Surely it would
> >> be better to leave this extensible?
> > This was a bit of a cop out because I was unable to find a way to
> > specify in ASN.1 syntax how to not put an upper limit on a sequence.
> 
> This seems to me like a fairly clear message that ASN.1 is the wrong
> tool to use here (quite aside from other problems with it - vide
> infra).

Jon says that the relevant parameters are identified by OIDs.  If there
is an existing namespace/registry of the such then it seems quite
appropriate to use OIDs here.

A list of OIDs need not be specified as an ASN.1 SEQUENCE though, and
SSHv2 already has a way to encode lists of things, re-using here.  That
way there's no need to use ASN.1 or any of its encodings just to send
these OIDs (since OIDs are DER encoded and so, when used as registered
names, just simple octet string constants).

Nico
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