Re: [jose] Stephen Farrell's Discuss on draft-ietf-jose-json-web-algorithms-33: (with DISCUSS and COMMENT)

[Mike Jones <[e-mail]>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stephen Farrell [mailto:[e-mail]]
> Sent: Monday, October 06, 2014 2:18 PM
> To: Jim Schaad; Mike Jones; 'The IESG'
> Cc: [e-mail]; draft-ietf-jose-json-web-
> [e-mail]; [e-mail]
> Subject: Re: [jose] Stephen Farrell's Discuss on draft-ietf-jose-json-web-
> algorithms-33: (with DISCUSS and COMMENT)
> 
> 
> (Sooo many messages on JOSE, I'll work backwards and see how far I get:-)
> 
> On 06/10/14 21:59, Jim Schaad wrote:
> >
> >
> >> -----Original Message----- From: jose [mailto:[e-mail]]
> >> On Behalf Of Mike Jones Sent:
> >> Monday, October 06, 2014 12:54 AM To: Stephen Farrell; The IESG Cc:
> >> [e-mail]; [e-mail];
> >> draft-ietf-jose-json-web- [e-mail] Subject: Re:
> >> [jose] Stephen Farrell's Discuss on draft-ietf-jose-json-web-
> >> algorithms-33: (with DISCUSS and COMMENT)
> >>
> >> Thanks for your review, Stephen.  I've included the working group on
> >> the thread so they're aware of your comments.
> >>
> >>> -----Original Message----- From: Stephen Farrell
> >>> [mailto:[e-mail]] Sent: Thursday, October 02,
> >>> 2014 3:37 AM To: The IESG Cc: [e-mail];
> >>> draft-ietf-jose-json-web- [e-mail] Subject:
> >>> Stephen Farrell's Discuss on
> >>> draft-ietf-jose-json-web-algorithms-33: (with DISCUSS and
> >>> COMMENT)
> >>>
> >>> Stephen Farrell has entered the following ballot position for
> >>> draft-ietf-jose-json-web-algorithms-33: Discuss
> >>>
> >>> When responding, please keep the subject line intact and reply to
> >>> all email addresses included in the To and CC lines. (Feel free to
> >>> cut this introductory paragraph, however.)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Please refer to
> >>> http://www.ietf.org/iesg/statement/discuss-criteria.html for more
> >>> information about IESG DISCUSS and COMMENT positions.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> The document, along with other ballot positions, can be found
> >>> here:
> >>> http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-jose-json-web-algorithms/
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>> DISCUSS:
> >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>> --
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> Sorry to pile on, but I guess such a detailed and broad piece of work
> >>> is likely to attract many comments and discusses. Mine should be
> >>> cleared up easily enough I hope.
> >>>
> >>> (1) 6.3.2.7: Hmm, where was that discussed on the list?  I think
> >>> it'd be better if >2 prime RSA was considered a separate algorithm.
> >>> (I vaguely recall some IPR with such moduli for some uses too, but
> >>> not sure.) I'd recommend dropping the whole "oth"
> >>> parameter entirely. (I'll clear this discuss once its clear that
> >>> this was discussed by the WG, I just want to check as I don't recall
> >>> it.)
> >>
> >> This was discussed in the thread "private keys, leading zeros"
> >> initiated by James Manger on August 15, 2012.  (Sorry, I can't get
> >> you the archive URL reference at present because I'm writing this
> >> offline on an airplane over the Pacific.)  It was also discussed as
> >> issue #153.  This feature was directly modelled on RFC 3447.
> >> Applications are free to profile the JWK spec to prohibit the use of
> >> such keys, so I don't see a compelling case to remove it.
> >
> > Mike, I may be missing some messages in my archive, however the last
> > message I see on this was you said that unless there was a demand for
> > it you saw no need to include this.  It then got included.  Do you
> > have a message I am missing?
> 
> Ah, ok, I'll leave this bit open for the present.

These fields were actually added in https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-jones-jose-json-private-key-01 before their adoption by the WG.  They had been absent in the -00 version of that draft.  The other change in -01 was to align the field names from RFC 3447.  It was in the interest of RFC 3447 alignment, which I believe James Manger had suggested, that the >= 3 primes fields were added.  That draft became https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-jones-jose-json-private-and-symmetric-key-00 when symmetric keys were added at the WG's request.  The working group then decided to incorporate the content of https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-jones-jose-json-private-and-symmetric-key-00 into http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-jose-json-web-key-09 and https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-jose-json-web-algorithms-09.  Given that "oth", etc. were included in multiple individual submission drafts before the WG decision to incorporate their content into the WG drafts, I took that as agreement that that feature should be included.

FYI, Richard Barnes had proposed in a DISCUSS that we cite RFC 3447 in the definitions of these fields.  I agree that we should do this.

I personally came around to the view that defining syntax for the >= 3 primes keys, as RFC 3447 did, would do no harm.  If applications choose not to support it or use it, that's fine.

> >>> (2) Instructions to DEs: would registering DES be considered ok or
> >>> not? What about myJustInventedPrivateAlg?  What about a request for
> >>> 10 ccTLD specific Algs? I think these need a bit more clarity wrt
> >>> cryptographic "goodness." As a nit, "makes sense"
> >>> isn't going to help too much, we've seen that reasonable folks can
> >>> differ on that here. Again I don't recall that discussion on the
> >>> list, but please point me at it if it
> >> happened.
> >>
> >> Registering DES with the Implementation Requirements value
> >> "Prohibited" would be permitted.  The instructions on the "JOSE
> >> Implementation Requirements" registry field include: Any identifiers
> >> registered for non-authenticated encryption algorithms or other
> >> algorithms that are otherwise unsuitable for direct use as JWS or JWE
> >> algorithms must be registered as "Prohibited".
> >>
> >> Note that this capability was added at the request of the W3C
> >> WebCrypto WG. (WebCrypto is choosing to support some algorithms that
> >> JOSE explicitly chose not to, including some non-authenticated
> >> encryption algorithms.)  "Deprecated" is also a value available to
> >> registrants and the DEs.
> >>
> >> If you want to supply additional proposed language to the DEs, that
> >> would be welcomed.
> >
> > I would tend to say that registering algorithms that we know now are
> > blah would not be acceptable.   (Note that you would need to create
> > an AEAD version of DES but that is doable.)  However, I would say that
> > registration of vanity algorithms would not necessarily be verboten.
> > I would hope that the DEs did some small due diligence that the
> > algorithm has been analyzed and is not trivially bad.
> >
> > It is not clear to me that it is possible to give language beyond "Do
> > the right thing" that would be usable.
> 
> It is tricky yes. I'll clear that as a DISCUSS and make it a comment.

Thanks.  I agree that it's tricky.  I'll still keep listening for suggested language improvements, but I don't personally have any in mind.

> S.
> 
> >
> >>
> >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>> --
> >>>
> >>>
> COMMENT:
> >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>> --
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> Col 1 of the final 3 rows are unfortunate.
> >>
> >> I don't know how to teach xml2rfc to not do what it did to the final
> >> 3 rows, but I can make a note to have the RFC editor manually address
> >> this if the tool can't.
> >
> > Add a width attribute to the ttcol with either "digits" (for fixed
> > width) or "digits%" (for percent width) to the column in question.
> >
> >>
> >>> - Surprised there was no need for integer DH. Can be added later I
> >>> guess.
> >>
> >> No one has previously asked about it.  But there registry will be
> >> there for it to be added, if wanted/needed.
> >
> > Everybody is going EC these days.
> >
> >>
> >>> - 6.2.1: Given that the point compression IPR is now expired
> >>> (right?) did the WG consider now allowing that? I wondered how much
> >>> work it would be to add now, vs to add later. If "later"
> >>> would cause a lot of duplication, then maybe "now" would actually be
> >>> worth it. ("Later" might also be fine considering the current work
> >>> in CFRG on additional curves.)
> >>
> >> I recall that in the discussions, people were happier having a single
> >> representation than multiple representations.  Given the curve
> >> discussions, that's also another reason I'd opt for "later".
> >>
> >
> > There was discussion on having compressed points.  Richard suggested
> > it in his message to change how points were done.  Mike said that he
> > wanted a single method and Russ said that the uncompressed method had
> > to be mandatory.  The group kinda drifted into just having the
> > uncompressed format.
> >
> >>> - 6.3.1.1: allowing the extra 0x00 would be a better choice IMO, but
> >> whatever.
> >>> Those were historically added so that buggy decoders wouldn't
> >>> wrongly think numbers negative, which could still happen maybe.
> >>
> >> Yeah, I realize why the Java library does this.  This was another
> >> case where we decided that having a single representation would
> >> create less interop problems down the road than allowing multiple
> >> representations.
> >
> > They were also added for ASN.1 because these were positive numbers and
> > not negative numbers.  This affects prefix removal for integers.
> > Would not have been an issue if they had been octet strings.  I am
> > agnostic about removal or keeping.  Knowing the length of the key by
> > doing a simple strlen seems to me to be a win.

As Jim points out, being able to know the length of the key by doing a .Length operation is another reason for keeping things the way they are.

Finally, existing implementations are having no problems that I've heard of using the keys as specified.  If it ain't broke - don't fix it.

> >>> - 7.1, 2nd para: why not RSA2048 earlier then?
> >>
> >> I don t actually recall.  I think the two choices reasonably
> >> available to us at this point are to either keep or delete this
> >> paragraph.  Which would you prefer?
> >
> >
> > Might be better to say.  If multiple variations of an algorithms are
> > being registered that vary only in key length (for example AES128 and
> > AES256) and the key length needs to be fixed (for example because it
> > will be created by a KDF), then....

Thanks, Jim.

> >>> - 8.3: Is 65537 considered a "low" e?  "Low" is too vague there.
> >>
> >> No, it's not "low", but I can't back that up with a reference off the
> >> top of my head.  Working group, what are the relevant documents here
> >> that we could reference for this information?
> >
> > Boneh, Dan (1999). "Twenty Years of attacks on the RSA Cryptosystem".
> > Notices of the American Mathematical Society 46 (2): 203–213.

Thanks, Jim.

> >>> - 8.6: suggesting a CA as a cure for oversized keys is odd, I think
> >>> those are separable things and e.g. TOFU might be just as or more
> >>> effective then X.509 here.
> >>
> >> Sean Turner suggested adding that text on July 6, 2012.  Proposed
> >> edits would be welcomed.
> >
> > Yeah, I tend to agree.  It might be better to just say that
> > implementations should set an upper limit on the key sizes they accept
> > and enforce it.

I agree that this language should be significantly simplified.  I'll try to do something along the lines suggested.

> >> -- Mike
> >>
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> >