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Colin Percival told you that he uses RSA-2048, AES-256 in CTR mode, and HMAC-SHA256. None of that information helps you with a one-line implementation error that incorrectly handles CTR nonces. That's 'poet's point.


By "standard implementation", I mean something like "OpenSSL 0.9.8o". This helps me more, since I can be fairly certain that >0 experts have reviewed that code. Given that absolute verification is just about impossible, it's a question of reducing the probability of failure wherever possible. With a private, closed implementation, the number of reviewers is almost certain to be lower.


By "standard implementation", I mean something like "OpenSSL 0.9.8o". This helps me more, since I can be fairly certain that >0 experts have reviewed that code.

It's a bit more complicated than that. Yes, >0 experts have reviewed OpenSSL code. But <1 experts have reviewed all of the OpenSSL code. Did the bits which matter to you get reviewed? Who knows...




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