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The C versions (mostly reference implementations) in NaCl are constant time. The assembly code is there for performance.


Well, maybe they are constant time today. But it is difficult to make wagers about the future of C compilers.


Everything that doesn't have assembler versions of all their constant time code (even NaCl under x86/x64) will be vulnerable then. It's possible that compilers start to "optimize" the branchless constructs, but it would almost be malicious as they extremely rare to ever encounter outside of specifically wanting not to branch.




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