Subject: Re: [PATCH 3/7] crypto: powerpc/md5 - Remove PowerPC optimized MD5 code

From: Segher Boessenkool <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2025 17:27:01 -0500

On Sun, Aug 03, 2025 at 03:14:38PM -0700, Eric Biggers wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 03, 2025 at 05:07:10PM -0500, Segher Boessenkool wrote:
> > On Sun, Aug 03, 2025 at 01:44:29PM -0700, Eric Biggers wrote:
> > > MD5 is insecure,
> > 
> > Really?  Have you found an attack?  Can you explain it to the rest of
> > the world?
> > 
> > MD5 is not recommended for future cryptographic purposes, there have
> > been some collission "attacks" on it (quotes because such a thing is
> > never an attack at all, merely an indication that not all is well with
> > it, somewhere in the future an actual vulnerability might be found).
> > 
> > Since there are newer, better, *cheaper* alternatives available, of
> > course you should not use MD5 for anything new anymore.  But claiming it
> > is insecure is FUD.
> 
> Many attacks, including practical attacks, have been found on MD5 over
> the past few decades.  Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MD5

There is no new information on that page.  There are no practical
attacks mentioned there, either, just some collission things (which
never can be practical attacks for most applications).

> > > This commit removes the PowerPC optimized MD5 code.
> > 
> > Why?  It would help to have real arguments for it!
> 
> Sure, check out the commit message which mentioned multiple reasons why
> maintaining this code is not worthwhile.

Of course I have read that, but that information went missing, if you
intended to provide it :-(

You are replacing a known-working target implementation by a lower
performance generic implementation.  But is that one known-working at
all?  Does it come with tests?  Was it tested to have the same outputs
as the existing thing, maybe?  Just on a few inputs maybe.

We were not told anything like that.

Segher