[iot-wg] algorithm agility for IoT

> On 21 Jan 2019, at 12:36, Andrei Kolesnikov <andrei at rol.ru> wrote:
> 
> Consider this problem of "hard wired crypto" only for specific class of IoT devices: power hungry, long-live, manageable, internet connected.  The similarity must be with any user premises equipment, such as wifi routers, cameras, etc.

I’m not sure that’s true Andrei.

If an IoT device is on the Internet, it shouldn’t have hard-wired crypto. Just like how it shouldn’t have a factory-set password of 0000 or whatever. This should not be a subject for debate. It’s basic common sense.* Whether that device is a node in a sensor network or some piece of CPE is irrelevant from that perspective.

Of course there are lots of trade-offs to be made when selecting crypto solutions for IoT: device lifetime, power, key lengths & rotation capabilities, memory & CPU capacity, bandwidth, costs, etc, prevailing policy & legislation, etc. But that’s an entirely different discussion which is orthogonal to the matter at hand.

* It’s such basic common sense it isn’t written down anywhere. As least I’ve not been able to find it in a standards document yet. Which means that common sense can’t get baked into equipment procurements, RFPs and so on. So if there’s an RFC or ITU Recommendation or whatever along those lines...