On 11/10/20 2:18 PM, Ben Cotton wrote:

On Tue, Nov 10, 2020 at 4:52 AM Timothée Ravier tim@siosm.fr wrote:

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The ECC Brainpool Curves [1][2] are currently not available in Fedora as according to this BZ [3], this needs Fedora Legal approval. Could someone from the legal team take a look to see if there are any blockers regarding Brainpool Curves inclusion in Fedora?

Thanks for bringing this up. I'll check on it.

Hi Ben, did you get back to look into this during last months (busy ones were they)?

We need to strip these curves from upstream tarballs and it would be great to have this resolved (in either way) rather sooner than later.

My main concern is the libgcrypt but guys handling other packages would like to hear an authoritative answer too:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1413618

Thanks,

On 3/18/21 4:10 PM, Ben Cotton wrote:

On Thu, Mar 18, 2021 at 10:06 AM Jakub Jelen jjelen@redhat.com wrote:

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We need to strip these curves from upstream tarballs and it would be great to have this resolved (in either way) rather sooner than later.

The Brainpool curves are not approved for use in Fedora at this time.

Hi, I wanted to bring up this topic once more again as it was suggested that if the curves are build-time disabled we should be able to go around without hobbling the source tarball. I proposed the following change to libgcrypt to support build-time disabling brainpool curves and I wanted to double-check if this approach is legally acceptable:

https://dev.gnupg.org/T5520#149566

Thanks,

Am Montag, dem 13.09.2021 um 09:38 -0400 schrieb Yaakov Selkowitz:

On Mon, 2021-09-13 at 08:56 +0200, Jakub Jelen wrote:

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On 3/18/21 4:10 PM, Ben Cotton wrote:

...

On Thu, Mar 18, 2021 at 10:06 AM Jakub Jelen jjelen@redhat.com wrote:

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We need to strip these curves from upstream tarballs and it would be great to have this resolved (in either way) rather sooner than later.

The Brainpool curves are not approved for use in Fedora at this time.

Hi, I wanted to bring up this topic once more again as it was suggested that without hobbling the source tarball. I proposed the following change to libgcrypt to support build-time disabling brainpool curves and I wanted to double-check if this approach is legally acceptable:

Long-standing policy has been that anything which cannot be included for legal reasons must be stripped from the source tarballs, so no.

Well, are there any chances for legal to reevaluate the ability to ship the Brainpool ECC within Fedora and/or RHEL?

Those curves are the IT-security recommendation and almost the de-facto standard for cryptography in most of the European countries, especially when it comes to the online functionality of the issued ID documents.

AFAIK, the implementation of Brainpool ECC in OpenSSL and OpenJDK has been contributed by Oracle, and they claim not to use, nor violate, any patented algorithms within their code.

Thanks, Björn aka besser82

Am Dienstag, dem 14.09.2021 um 13:18 -0400 schrieb Matthew Miller:

On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 04:27:19PM +0200, Björn 'besser82' Esser wrote:

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Well, are there any chances for legal to reevaluate the ability to ship the Brainpool ECC within Fedora and/or RHEL?

I'll see what I can find out.

Thank you in advance for your efforts!

Am 14.10.21 um 21:44 schrieb Björn 'besser82' Esser:

I don't want to be pushy, but it's been a while since your reply. Did you get any response or reaction about this in the meantime?

Just wanted to mention that this affects me as well. For example electronic prescriptions in Germany require signatures with brainpool curves so as of now we'd have to rebuild OpenSSL to verify these signatures...

Felix

Am Samstag, dem 16.10.2021 um 23:24 -0400 schrieb Matthew Miller:

On Fri, Oct 15, 2021 at 12:23:57PM +0200, Felix Schwarz wrote:

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Am 14.10.21 um 21:44 schrieb Björn 'besser82' Esser:

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I don't want to be pushy, but it's been a while since your reply.  Did you get any response or reaction about this in the meantime?

Just wanted to mention that this affects me as well. For example electronic prescriptions in Germany require signatures with brainpool curves so as of now we'd have to rebuild OpenSSL to verify these signatures...

Thank you, that kind of information is very helpful. Can you link to something documenting this requirement? I coulnd't find anything in a quick search. (It's okay if it's in German.)

Here is a technical reference document (TR-03116-4) issued by German "BSI" [1] (Federal agency for IT security). On the very bottom of page 21 it says: "Außerdem muss die elliptische Kurve BrainpoolP256r1 für die ECC-Verfahren unterstützt werden" -> "Additionally support for BrainpoolP256r1 ECC is mandatory."

In TR-03116-2 [2] on page 9 one can also find the mandatory requirement for Brainpool ECC: "Für kryptographische Algorithmen basierend auf Elliptischen Kurven (d.h. ECDSA und ECKA) sind die Brainpool Domain Parameter [26] in den entsprechenden Bitlängen zu verwenden." -> "For cryptographic algorithms based on ECC (ECDSA, ECKA) Brainpool domain parameters with adequate bit lengths as shown are to be used."

Thanks, Björn

[1] https://www.bsi.bund.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/BSI/Publikationen/Technische... [2] https://www.bsi.bund.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/BSI/Publikationen/Technische...

On Sun, Oct 17, 2021 at 12:25:52PM +0200, Felix Schwarz wrote:

Here you go: https://fachportal.gematik.de/fachportal-import/files/gemSpec_Krypt_V2.18.0....

I'd like to mention that this document is not just authoritative for digital prescriptions but also other - maybe even more important - use cases related to the German health care system:

• eAU https://www.kbv.de/html/e-au.php
• ePA (electronic patient records): https://www.kbv.de/html/epa.php

Thanks both of you -- I'll forward these on and see if it helps.

I'm hitting this problem as well with the German ID (eAU), see BZ: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2000306

Some BSI tech guidelines relating to ECCs are actually available in english, too, e.g.:

https://www.bsi.bund.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/EN/BSI/Publications/TechGuideli... https://www.bsi.bund.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/EN/BSI/Publications/TechGuideli...

Quoting from the former doc:

1.1. Patents and side-channel attacks In implementations, patents and side-channel attacks play an important role. The algorithms described in this guideline have been carefully selected to allow patent-free and/or license-free implementations. Nevertheless, some of the described algorithms or its par- ticular implementations may be subject of patent rights. The BSI shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights. Implementors and security evaluators shall also pay attention to [6], which gives a general guidance to assess the side-channel resistance of implementations on smartcards

There is more anecdotal evidence e.g. here by ARM Mbed: https://tls.mbed.org/kb/cryptography/elliptic-curve-performance-nist-vs-brai...

Quote:

Can you optimize Brainpool curves to be as fast as the NIST curves?

Unfortunately, this is not possible. The design decision for Brainpool to use random primes was aimed at:

• avoiding possible patent issues with fast reduction algorithms
• avoiding potential security issues with non-random primes

Nitrokey docs also show using Brainpool curves in their docs: https://docs.nitrokey.com/pro/linux/ecc.html

[...] A suitable version of GnuPG is included in the GNU/Linux

distributions Ubuntu (since 18.04), Debian (from Stretch onwards),

Arch Linux, Fedora (from Release 26 onwards) and openSUSE Tumbleweed [...]

They apparently haven't tested their guide on Fedora in a while ;)

All of the above makes it look to me as though Brainpool curves were specifically designed to NOT touch on any patents. I'd be curious if any other of the big distros exclude the Brainpool curves too. On the linked BZ it was stated that Xubuntu includes them.

It would be great if the current exclusion of those curves would be reevaluated.

Thanks, Christian

I will check back again.

On Sun, Jan 16, 2022 at 06:21:05PM -0000, Julian Sikorski wrote:

Hello Matthew,

are there any updates regarding this?

Best regards, Julian _______________________________________________ legal mailing list -- legal@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to legal-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/legal@lists.fedoraproject.org Do not reply to spam on the list, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure

Thank you!

Am 06.04.22 um 16:13 schrieb Matthew Miller:

Sooooo, these things move slowly, but this _is_ being worked on. I'll let you know when I can.

On Fri, Jan 28, 2022 at 05:19:34PM -0500, Matthew Miller wrote:

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I will check back again.

On Sun, Jan 16, 2022 at 06:21:05PM -0000, Julian Sikorski wrote:

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Hello Matthew,

are there any updates regarding this?

Best regards, Julian _______________________________________________ legal mailing list -- legal@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to legal-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/legal@lists.fedoraproject.org Do not reply to spam on the list, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure

-- Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org Fedora Project Leader _______________________________________________ legal mailing list -- legal@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to legal-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/legal@lists.fedoraproject.org Do not reply to spam on the list, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure

On Wed, Apr 06, 2022 at 05:31:10PM +0200, Felix Schwarz wrote:

Am 06.04.22 um 16:13 schrieb Matthew Miller:

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Sooooo, these things move slowly, but this _is_ being worked on. I'll let you know when I can.

Thanks :-) The day Red Hat is able to distribute the brainpool curves will be a great one for us.

I have been told that it is okay to include Brainpool ECC in Fedora. Thank you for your patience.

On Tue, 2022-11-08 at 10:19 -0500, Matthew Miller wrote:

On Wed, Apr 06, 2022 at 05:31:10PM +0200, Felix Schwarz wrote:

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Am 06.04.22 um 16:13 schrieb Matthew Miller:

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Sooooo, these things move slowly, but this _is_ being worked on. I'll let you know when I can.

Thanks :-) The day Red Hat is able to distribute the brainpool curves will be a great one for us.

I have been told that it is okay to include Brainpool ECC in Fedora. Thank you for your patience.

So can you remove blocker FE_LEGAL tracker on https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1413618 ? and write that is approved please

-- Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org Fedora Project Leader _______________________________________________ legal mailing list -- legal@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to legal-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/legal@lists.fedoraproject.org Do not reply to spam, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure/new_issue

On Tue, Nov 8, 2022 at 10:24 PM Richard Fontana rfontana@redhat.com wrote:

I use redhat.bugzilla.com very infrequently

bugzilla.redhat.com, that is

On Tue, Nov 8, 2022 at 10:34 PM Neal Gompa ngompa13@gmail.com wrote:

On Tue, Nov 8, 2022 at 10:29 PM Richard Fontana rfontana@redhat.com wrote:

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On Tue, Nov 8, 2022 at 10:24 PM Richard Fontana rfontana@redhat.com wrote:

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I use redhat.bugzilla.com very infrequently

bugzilla.redhat.com, that is

Edit the Blocks field to remove the FE_LEGAL BZ and make a comment noting that this is fine.

Ah, of course. It's an "advanced field" that is hidden by default (and unhidden by a button way off to the right and easy to overlook, for me at least). Done now.

Richard

On Thu, May 16, 2024 at 10:00 AM Fabio Valentini decathorpe@gmail.com wrote:

On Tue, Nov 8, 2022 at 4:19 PM Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:

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On Wed, Apr 06, 2022 at 05:31:10PM +0200, Felix Schwarz wrote:

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Am 06.04.22 um 16:13 schrieb Matthew Miller:

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Sooooo, these things move slowly, but this _is_ being worked on. I'll let you know when I can.

Thanks :-) The day Red Hat is able to distribute the brainpool curves will be a great one for us.

I have been told that it is okay to include Brainpool ECC in Fedora. Thank you for your patience.

Sorry for resurrecting this old thread. I just realized that the wiki has not been updated to reflect the fact that the Brainpool curves are considered OK now: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:ECC

Can somebody with edit privileges on that page update the list? Or should this documentation be moved somewhere else altogether (legal docs on docs.fp.o)?

It should probably be moved to docs.fp.o, we've been treating the legal portions of the wiki as deprecated.

Richard