Standardizing Firefox's Implementation of Link Fingerprints

["Edward Lee" <[e-mail]>]

For Firefox 3, there are patches [1] that implement Link Fingerprints,
which provide automatic resource verification for URIs that look like
http://site.com/file#hash(sha256:abc123) so that link providers can be
sure that end users download the exact file that the provider intended
(and not a trojaned download).

The fragment identifier portion of the URI is used for backwards
compatibility with existing clients while allowing for extended usage
across protocols (e.g., http, ftp) and resource contexts (e.g., a
href, img src). Additionally, fragment identifiers are not sent as
part of a HTTP request, so the network and servers do not need to be
changed. With the backwards compatibility, incremental deployment is
feasible with some clients supporting Link Fingerprints, and end users
don't need to do anything unless there's a fingerprint failure.

An initial draft to standardize Link Fingerprints is available online..

https://people.mozilla.com/~edilee/draft-lee-uri-linkfingerprints-00.txt

Feedback is welcome about the design, syntax, supported hashes,
failure cases, etc.

Ed

[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=377245