From 8a1b2c88060d05865794047958a44f34645b9f84 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: =?UTF-8?q?Manuel=20P=C3=A9gouri=C3=A9-Gonnard?= Date: Wed, 23 May 2018 13:26:22 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] Update CTR documentation --- include/mbedtls/aria.h | 41 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-------- 1 file changed, 33 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-) diff --git a/include/mbedtls/aria.h b/include/mbedtls/aria.h index 4bb1fc28a..8e59ffc04 100644 --- a/include/mbedtls/aria.h +++ b/include/mbedtls/aria.h @@ -255,19 +255,44 @@ int mbedtls_aria_crypt_cfb128( mbedtls_aria_context *ctx, * * There are two common strategies for managing nonces with CTR: * - * 1. Use a counter starting at 0 or a random value. With this - * strategy, this function will increment the counter for you, so - * you only need to preserve the \p nonce_counter buffer between - * calls. With this strategy, you must not encrypt more than - * 2**128 blocks of data. - * 2. Use a randomly-generated \p nonce_counter for each call. - * With this strategy, you need to ensure the nonce is generated - * in an unbiased way and you must not encrypt more than 2**64 + * 1. You can handle everything as a single message processed over + * successive calls to this function. In that case, you want to + * set \p nonce_counter and \p nc_off to 0 for the first call, and + * then preserve the values of \p nonce_counter, \p nc_off and \p + * stream_block across calls to this function as they will be + * updated by this function. + * + * With this strategy, you must not encrypt more than 2**128 * blocks of data. * + * 2. You can encrypt separate messages by dividing the \p + * nonce_counter buffer in two areas: the first one used for a + * per-message nonce, handled by yourself, and the second one + * updated by this function internally. + * + * For example, you might reserve the first 12 bytes for the + * per-message nonce, and the last 4 bytes for internal use. In that + * case, before calling this function on a new message you need to + * set the first 12 bytes of \p nonce_counter to your chosen nonce + * value, the last 4 to 0, and \p nc_off to 0 (which will cause \p + * stream_block to be ignored). That way, you can encrypt at most + * 2**96 messages of up to 2**32 blocks each. + * + * The per-message nonce (or information sufficient to reconstruct + * it) needs to be communicated with the ciphertext and must be unique. + * The recommended way to ensure uniqueness is to use a message + * counter. An alternative is to generate random nonces, but this + * limits the number of messages that can be securely encrypted: + * for example, with 96-bit random nonces, you should not encrypt + * more than 2**32 messages with the same key. + * * Note that for both stategies, the limit is in number of blocks * and that an ARIA block is 16 bytes. * + * \warning Upon return, \p stream_block constains sensitive data. Its + * content must not be written to insecure storage and should be + * securely discarded as soon as it's no longer needed. + * * \param ctx The ARIA context to use for encryption or decryption. * \param length The length of the input data. * \param nc_off The offset in the current \p stream_block, for