Re: Importing libraries for the kernel

[Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

>>> Asymmetrical cryptography is slow and complex.
>> Didn't that ship sail long ago?  I recall seeing people talking
>> about putting entire languages into the kernel, in some cases even
>> including jitters.  Much as I dislike this, I find that far more "no
>> way in hell is that going into _my_ machines' kernels!".
> Few of this things require 10k+ cycle operations in one go.

Neither does asymmetric crypto - at least not the crypto I know.  It
takes a (comparative) lot of CPU, yes, but it doesn't have to be all in
one go; there is nothing that makes it impossible to do the work in
multiple smaller pieces.

>> I also disagree that asymmetric crypto is necessarily all that
>> complex.  [...]
> Correct and fast implementations of large number arithmetic are
> complex, esp. if you also want to avoid the typical set of timing
> leaks.

What is the threat model?  This is in the kernel, remember; whom is
there to potentially leak anything to?  (That's a serious question; it
is not clear to me why anyone thinks asymmetric crypto would be a good
idea in the kernel - perhaps I missed some list mail? - so I don't know
what it's trying to defend against.  I can easily imagine some uses,
but for the ones I've come up with so far, timing leaks are completely
irrelevant.)

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