Talk:Cryptographic key types

What does this page aspire to be? I just wikified it, since it needed wikification, and I'm familiar with the concepts. However, "Cryptographic key types" seems like an odd encyclopedia entry to me. The reference to a particular NIST standard is odd, as there are other types of cryptographic keys than these, for instance, signcryption keys or blind signature keys. But I'm really not sure what SHOULD be here at all. Perhaps this is an AfD candidate? Surely this information exists elsewhere. Mangojuice 22:07, 19 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I suggest merging it with List of cryptographic key types. --agr 22:19, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I concur. I can't see any justification for having two separate articles. &mdash; Matt Crypto 23:27, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

The purpose of this page is to list what are the types of keys from the POV of key management. That is if one build a key management system he should label each key with one such type and never use the key for different purpose. This makes the page a solid entity. BTW, my original intend was to create a separate page for each item and put redirect to this page. OTOH, I have no idea what is the purpose of List of cryptographic key types as it seems to have no cohesive organization. In fact, I was considering removing that page (or hijacking it by this page), but was shy to do it. GBL 17:54, 19 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I created List of cryptographic key types about a year before this page. The intent was to create a glossary of key-related terms. I'd suggest adding the list here as a separate section and combining the two articles. --agr 12:52, 20 March 2006 (UTC)


 * &ldquo;[A] glossary of key-related terms&rdquo; is not the same thing as classification of key types from the key management point of view. GBL 13:02, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Same key for CBC-MAC and CBC
[Moved from my talk page GBL 13:02, 23 May 2006 (UTC)]

... referring to:

"One of well-known examples is reuse of the same symmetric key for both symmetric authentication key in CBC-MAC and as symmetric data encryption key in CBC encryption."

I said in the comment:

"Wrong statement corrected. Saying that it is only used for CBC is like saying assymetric keys are only used by PGP."

- and I deleted all references to CBC-MAC. ... Msoos 19:52, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I saw your comment and reworded the CBC/MAC example. The point was that it is bad to mix different key types. The next sentence (about CBC/MAC) only gives an example of how devastating the consequences can be. Although, reusing the same key (for example, for HMAC and CTR-mode) is not very wise, it is not immediately clear what is the weakness and thus this is not a good example. GBL 13:02, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I do not understand you. I really wish that you are acting in good faith and are simply misunderstanding the issue at hand. Let my try to explain my point:


 * 1) It is not a good practice to put a very specific example in the 4th sentence of an introduction
 * 2) An example should be as general as possible, and needing as little background knowledge as possible. Key for authentication and key for encryption seems fair. Trying to specify it down to the last detail (CBC or otherwise) is not a good idea.
 * 3) CBC is getting out of business, it's like talking about horse-driven carts in the age of the supersonic jet-fighters
 * 4) Making the example specific misleads the audience as to think that this issue only affects something called CBC (which most of them will have no clue about)
 * 5) Your reasoning IS valid, that is to say, that it DOES have devastating consequences, and note that I did not edit out that part (or did not wish to), all I edited out was the CBC part - and in your reasoning all you say is: "this happens with CBC, so let's mention it". You actually give no reason why to mention it, when I am sure you know that this happens everywhere

I hope we can agree on deleting out the very specific CBC part. For the moment, I will not delete it, as I hope you will realise the logic of what I am saying here. Cheers, Msoos 18:59, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


 * (1) Why? I guess it is a very good idea to give specific examples, especially in the beginning&emsp;(2) Without &ldquo;CBC&rdquo; the example would be pointless. The example is about CBC-MAC and CBC encryption ... oops, I just start to realize that this well-known example was never described in Wikipedia ... I'll add it to CBC-MAC page shortly&emsp;(3) No, this is the other way around: a strong specific examples shows that the consequences can be very bad so don't do this in general&emsp;(4) It is not just happens with CBC as well as with everything else, no, this is that bad only with CBC (although, it can be bad with everything else also).&emsp;CBC cannot be removed. GBL 12:03, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Reworked intro part
I reworked the introduction to explain the purpose of key types. The listing of the key types remains unchanged. I updated the NIST reference document, as a more recent version than the one stated is available.ScienceGuard (talk) 11:05, 12 June 2017 (UTC)