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Date:      Wed, 3 Oct 2001 18:18:40 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Caitlen <caitlen888@yahoo.com>
To:        security@freebsd.org
Subject:   default cipher types in openssh
Message-ID:  <20011004011840.74747.qmail@web13904.mail.yahoo.com>

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I'm noticed that openssh, even when connecting with
protocol 2, seems to default to 3des.  While that's a
pretty conversative stance, isn't AES256 a little more
secure?  The order of preferrence seems to a little
off.

For example.
3des-cbc,blowfish-cbc,cast128-cbc,arcfour,aes128-cbc,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc,rijndael128-cbc,rijndael192-cbc,rijndael256-cbc,rijndael-cbc@lysator.liu.se

I believe are the default cipher types.  Why is
arcfour even in the list?  I removed it many months
ago on my production servers (with no ill effect). 
Infact right now I'm running with.

Host *
  Ciphers rijndael256-cbc

in my ~/.ssh/config
and

Ciphers rijndael256-cbc

in my /etc/ssh/sshd_config, with no ill effect. 
SecureCRT from vandyke seems to support AES 256 with
no difficulty either.

Now I'm not suggesting we remove all of the other
cipher types except for AES, that would certainly
backwards compability.  I am however suggesting that
we should have some open dicussion on the order of
preference here.  Certainly arcfour should not be
listed as being more preferrable then AES.
Personally I think it should be something along the
lines of.  

Ciphers AES256, AES192, AES128, blowfish, 3des

As I stand back in january, it'd sure be niced if
failed ssh logins showed up in the logs (at all) by
default.... auth.info really should be in the default
syslog.conf, most people dont know to add it in
themselves.  Sparing that, in sshd_config move the
logging facility to security.





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