ChaCha20, Poly1305 and their use in IPsec
draft-nir-ipsecme-chacha20-poly1305-04

Network Working Group                                             Y. Nir
Internet-Draft                                               Check Point
Intended status: Standards Track                            June 1, 2014
Expires: December 3, 2014

               ChaCha20, Poly1305 and their use in IPsec
                 draft-nir-ipsecme-chacha20-poly1305-04

Abstract

   This document describes the use of the ChaCha20 stream cipher along
   with the Poly1305 authenticator, combined into an AEAD algorithm for
   IPsec.

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on December 3, 2014.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
     1.1.  Conventions Used in This Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
   2.  ESP_ChaCha20-Poly1305 for ESP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
     2.1.  AAD Construction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
   3.  Use in IKEv2  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
   4.  UI Suite  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
   5.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
   6.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
   7.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
   8.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
     8.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
     8.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

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1.  Introduction

   The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES - [FIPS-197]) has become the
   gold standard in encryption.  Its efficient design, wide
   implementation, and hardware support allow for high performance in
   many areas, including IPsec VPNs.  On most modern platforms, AES is
   anywhere from 4x to 10x as fast as the previous most-used cipher,
   3-key Data Encryption Standard (3DES - [FIPS-46]), which makes it not
   only the best choice, but the only choice.

   The problem is that if future advances in cryptanalysis reveal a
   weakness in AES, VPN users will be in an unenviable position.  With
   the only other widely supported cipher being the much slower 3DES, it
   is not feasible to re-configure IPsec installations to use 3DES.
   [standby-cipher] describes this issue and the need for a standby
   cipher in greater detail.

   This document proposes the ChaCha20 stream cipher as such a standby
   cipher in an AEAD construction with the Poly1305 authenticator for
   use with the Encapsulated Security Protocol (ESP - [RFC4303]).  We
   call this ESP_ChaCha20-Poly1305.  These algorithms are described in a
   separate document ([chacha_poly]).  This document only describes the
   IPsec-specific things.

1.1.  Conventions Used in This Document

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this