Re: scrypt ASICs - litecoin N, r, p settings - Re: Revisiting the SHA1 default password hash

[Emily Backes <ebackes@symas.com>]

> Requiring 1GB for a password hash will preclude using it on small devices, 
> e.g. raspberry pi.
> 
> Even 16MB is excessive.

It's sounding like the newer and more complicated hashes have a lot of configurable features that may need site-local tuning.  Should these be part of e.g. slapd.conf config or be settings embedded in the value format for later clarity, like

{HASHNAME:attr=val,attr=val,attr=val}SnVzdCBhbiBleGFtcGxlLCBzaWxseQ==

Considering the size of some of these newfangled hashes, attribute length doesn't look to be a relevant concern any longer.  Realistically this would probably be a better way to express things like salt values in addition to the iteration counts and so on.  If a structured value is what we really want there, BER might be more appropriate, possibly with a leading {EXTENDED-STRUCTURE} hash declaration.

--
Emily Backes
Symas Corporation
ebackes@symas.com