14.6. Secure Remote Password Protocol

14.6.1. About Secure Remote Password Protocol (SRP)

The Secure Remote Password (SRP) protocol is an implementation of a public key exchange handshake described in the Internet Standards Working Group Request For Comments 2945 (RFC2945). The RFC2945 abstract states:
This document describes a cryptographically strong network authentication mechanism known as the Secure Remote Password (SRP) protocol. This mechanism is suitable for negotiating secure connections using a user-supplied password, while eliminating the security problems traditionally associated with reusable passwords. This system also performs a secure key exchange in the process of authentication, allowing security layers (privacy and/or integrity protection) to be enabled during the session. Trusted key servers and certificate infrastructures are not required, and clients are not required to store or manage any long-term keys. SRP offers both security and deployment advantages over existing challenge-response techniques, making it an ideal drop-in replacement where secure password authentication is needed.
The complete RFC2945 specification can be obtained from http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc.html. Additional information on the SRP algorithm and its history can be found at http://srp.stanford.edu/.
Algorithms like Diffie-Hellman and RSA are known as public key exchange algorithms. The concept of public key algorithms is that you have two keys, one public that is available to everyone, and one that is private and known only to you. When someone wants to send encrypted information to you, they encrypt the information using your public key. Only you are able to decrypt the information using your private key. Contrast this with the more traditional shared password based encryption schemes that require the sender and receiver to know the shared password. Public key algorithms eliminate the need to share passwords.