[Babel-users] [babel] BASE64 and hex encoding HMAC keys for user presentation

[Toke Høiland-Jørgensen]

Juliusz Chroboczek <jch at irif.fr> writes:

>> I would like the bird and babel implementations to allow for and use
>> BASE64 and hex encodings.
>
>> This allows for a shorter, more human friendly representation of both
>> cryptographically generated keys and the keys humans are more likely
>> to remember and type without error. In the latter case, guidelines as
>> to length, mixed case and punctuation would be useful.
>
> I think that the HMAC key should be generated automatically.  I'd hope
> that any actual production deployment of HMAC would generate HMAC keys
> either randomly or by using a suitable KDF (or whatever the right acronym
> is) and distribute it automatically.

Should we pick a KDF? Not necessarily for the RFC, but at least try to
get compatibility between bird and babeld, so users can just input a
password and expect things to work?

-Toke