Re: [PATCH RFC v1 0/3] remove remaining users of SHA-1

[Sandy Harris]

Jason A. Donenfeld <Jason@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> There are currently two remaining users of SHA-1 left in the kernel: bpf
> tag generation, and ipv6 address calculation.

I think there are three, since drivers/char/random.c also uses it.
Moreover, there's some inefficiency there (or was last time I
looked) since it produces a 160-bit hash then folds it in half
to give an 80-bit output.

A possible fix would be to use a more modern 512-bit hash.
SHA3 would be the obvious one, but Blake2 would work,
Blake3 might be faster & there are several other possibilities.
Hash context size would then match ChaCha so you could
update the whole CC context at once, maybe even use the
same context for both.

That approach has difficulties, Extracting 512 bits every
time might drain the input pool too quickly & it is overkill
for ChaCha which should be secure with smaller rekeyings.

If you look at IPsec, SSL & other such protocols, many
have now mostly replaced the hash-based HMAC
constructions used in previous generations with things
like Galois field calculations (e.g. AES-GCM) or other
strange math (e,g. poly 1305). These have most of the
desirable properties of hashes & are much faster. As
far as I know, they all give 128-bit outputs.

I think we should replace SHA-1 with GCM. Give
ChaCha 128 bits somewhat more often than current
code gives it 256.