Re: [jose] #23: Make crypto independent of binary encoding (base64)

[Brian Campbell <[e-mail]>]

Big +1 to Naveen's comment here. It's not about the size of the code change
at all. It's about the impact to widely deployed production code that
cannot be simultaneously updated.


On Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 6:53 PM, Naveen Agarwal <[e-mail]> wrote:

>
>
> But I think we're literally talking about something like a 5-line patch.
>
>
> Unfortunately there are lot of clients apps that are using jwt and
> modifying those apps is not going to be easy.
> Whether it is a one line or two line change, it doesn't matter. Breaking
> change for something that is working well is bad idea (unless it is for
> security reason).
>
>
> Naveen
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 1:23 PM, Richard Barnes <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
>> <impartial-analysis>
>> So just to be clear on the trade-off the WG has to make:
>>
>> On the one hand: Breaking every existing JWT implementation in the world
>> On the other hand: Eternally binding ourselves to base64 encoding, even
>> if binary-safe encodings become available (CBOR, MsgPack, etc.)
>> </impartial-analysis >
>>
>> <personal-opinion>
>> I have some sympathy with JWT implementors.  It sucks to have to refactor
>> code.  But I think we're literally talking about something like a 5-line
>> patch.  And early JWT implementors knew or should have known (to use a DC
>> phrase) that they were dealing with a draft spec.  As the W3C editor's
>> draft template says, in big bold red print, "Implementors who are not
>> taking part in the discussions are likely to find the specification
>> changing out from under them in incompatible ways."
>>
>> As PHB pointed out in the other thread, it would be nice to use JWS and
>> JWE in place of CMS one day, without the base64 hit.  We should incur the
>> implementation pain now, and get the design right for the long run.  Base64
>> is a hack around JSON; we should build the system so that when we no longer
>> need that hack, it can go away.
>> </personal-opinion>
>>
>> --Richard
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 10:27 AM, Matt Miller (mamille2) <
>> [e-mail]> wrote:
>>
>>> I did at first find it curious why the cryptographic operations were
>>> over the base64url-enccoded values, but I was also very focused on JWE,
>>> where I think the field separation problem is less of an issue (at least
>>> now).  For JWS, this would certainly cause problems without some manner of
>>> unambiguous field parameterization.
>>>
>>> I will note that unescaped NULL is not valid in JSON, so it could be
>>> used as a separator between the encoded header and the payload.  I do find
>>> it interesting if JOSE could more easily and efficiently support other
>>> encodings.  However, I think that while this is an interesting thought
>>> experiment, it seems we're too far down the path to seriously consider it
>>> unless the current state were shown to be horribly broken.
>>>
>>>
>>> - m&m
>>>
>>> Matt Miller < [e-mail] >
>>> Cisco Systems, Inc.
>>>
>>> On Jun 11, 2013, at 6:01 PM, jose issue tracker <
>>> [e-mail]> wrote:
>>>
>>> > #23: Make crypto independent of binary encoding (base64)
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > Comment (by [e-mail]):
>>> >
>>> > For both serializations, you already need the base64url encoded
>>> versions
>>> > of the JWS Header and the JWS Payload to preserve them in
>>> transmission, so
>>> > computing them isn't an extra burden.  In the JWS Compact
>>> Serialization,
>>> > you already need the concatenation of the Encoded JWS Header, a period
>>> > character, and the Encoded JWS Payload, so computing that concatenation
>>> > isn't an extra burden.  Given you already have that quantity, computing
>>> > the signature over it is the easiest thing for developers to do, and
>>> it's
>>> > been shown to work well in practice.  There's no compelling reason to
>>> make
>>> > this change.
>>> >
>>> > Even for the JSON Serialization, the only "extra" step that's required
>>> to
>>> > compute the signature is the concatenation with the period character -
>>> to
>>> > prevent shifting of data from one field to the other, as described by
>>> Jim
>>> > Schaad in the e-mail thread.  So this step isn't actually "extra" at
>>> all -
>>> > it's necessary.  It's also highly advantageous to use exactly the same
>>> > computation for both serializations, which is currently the case.
>>> >
>>> > Since there is no compelling reason to make this change, and since
>>> making
>>> > it could enable the "shifting" problem identified by Jim, it should
>>> not be
>>> > made.
>>> >
>>> > --
>>> >
>>> -------------------------+-------------------------------------------------
>>> > Reporter:  [e-mail]   |       Owner:  draft-ietf-jose-json-web-
>>> >     Type:  defect       |  [e-mail]
>>> > Priority:  major        |      Status:  new
>>> > Component:  json-web-    |   Milestone:
>>> >  encryption             |     Version:
>>> > Severity:  -            |  Resolution:
>>> > Keywords:               |
>>> >
>>> -------------------------+-------------------------------------------------
>>> >
>>> > Ticket URL: <
>>> http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/jose/trac/ticket/23#comment:2>
>>> > jose <http://tools.ietf.org/jose/>
>>> >
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > jose mailing list
>>> > [e-mail]
>>> > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/jose
>>>
>>>
>>
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