2. The OCS ECC HW does not support the NIST P-192 curve. We were planning to
add SW fallback for P-192 in the driver, but the Intel Crypto team
(which, internally, has to approve any code involving cryptography)
advised against it, because they consider P-192 weak. As a result, the
driver is not passing crypto self-tests. Is there any possible solution
to this? Is it reasonable to change the self-tests to only test the
curves actually supported by the tested driver? (not fully sure how to do
that).
An additional reason against the P-192 SW fallback is the fact that it can
potentially trigger unsafe behavior which is not even "visible" to the end user
of the ECC functionality. If I request (by my developer mistake) a P-192
weaker curve from ECC Keem Bay HW driver, it is much safer to return a
"not supported" error that proceed behind my back with a SW code
implementation making me believe that I am actually getting a HW-backed up
functionality (since I don't think there is a way for me to check that I am using
SW fallback).
Best Regards,
Elena