Re: draft-miller-secsh-umac-00.txt

[Ben Harris <bjh21%bjh21.me.uk@localhost>]

In article <Pine.BSO.4.64.0706130715330.13880%fuyu.mindrot.org@localhost> you write:
>Attached is a draft for the use of Ted Krovetz' UMAC (RFC4418) as
>a SSH MAC. OpenSSH -current implements the umac-64 method described
>in the draft under the name "umac-64%openssh.com@localhost".
>
>We'd be interested in hearing from anyone else who wants to implement it.

I haven't tried implementing this yet, but I notice one thing that could
be simplified.  The sequence number in SSH MACs is usually represented
as a uint32, and UMAC only requires that the nonce be a string of length
1 to BLOCKLEN bytes, so it seems a little strange to insist on padding
the sequence number to 8 bytes.  Why not just pass the 4-byte version of
the sequence number as the nonce?

On a more mundane note, you've forgotten your IANA Considerations.

-- 
Ben Harris