The state of crypto products

[ciphergoth]

Just read this story on Slashdot, so in curiosity I downloaded the paper. And I have to echo and extend comments Peter Gutmann made about the state of crypto under Linux: when you hear about a product that uses crypto, open source, Linux based or otherwise, just assume that the crypto is woefully cack-handed rubbish from someone who's read Applied Cryptography if that.

ssh v2 is mostly OK. TLS (SSL v3.1) is mostly OK. GPG is mostly OK. IPSec is mostly OK. I don't know of anything else that people in the field think well of.

Comments

[pavlos.livejournal.com]

Why is this? I mean I understand how software bugs or design mistakes actually arise, but why does the problem exist overall? I would have expected the field to have the following properties:

• Really slow introduction of new designs.
• Only a handful of designs actively in use.
• Very clear designs, at the expense of other factors.
• Much activity in qualifying and fine-tuning existing designs.

What you are saying suggests the opposite. is it straightforward cluelessness, or that no-one has figured the right sort of abstraction to reuse and refine cryptosystems they way you can ciphers?

Pavlos