Re: [MLS] Circular dependency in node hash calculation?

Yeah, just to restate / reaffirm what Raphael says:

* You get parent_hash values when you get the tree initially (in Welcome)
or when you process a DirectPath
* You compute node hashes based on those hashes, plus the other contents of
the nodes

Totally agree that this is tricky to get right, though :)  If you have
suggestions for how we can make this clearer, they would be welcome.

--Richard

On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 4:43 PM Raphael Robert <raphael=
40wire.com@dmarc.ietf.org> wrote:

> (forgot to include the list)
>
> > On 6 Jul 2020, at 22:05, Raphael Robert <raphael@wire.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Hubert,
> >
> > I admit this looks a bit confusing. The parent_hash field of a
> ParentNode is not to be calculated at that point in time. Instead, it
> should already be there. It gets populated by processing a Commit message,
> where a LeafNode gets updated and its entire direct path is also updated.
> In other words, calculating the tree hash is strictly a top down operation.
> >
> > Regarding the serialisation: MLS uses the TLS presentation language
> specified in RFC8446.
> >
> > Raphael
> >
> >> On 6 Jul 2020, at 19:04, Hubert Chathi <hubertc@matrix.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> I may be missing something, but it seems to me like there is a circular
> dependency in the definition of the hash of a parent node.  In the "Tree
> Hashes" section, it says that when computing the hash of a parent node, you
> use the ParentNodeHashInput struct, which includes an item that is a
> ParentNode (which I assume is the data concerning the node that you are
> hashing), as well as the hashes of the two children.  However, ParentNode
> contains an item called parent_hash, which I assume is the hash of the
> node's parent.  Thus to calculate the hash of a node,  you need to
> calculate the hash of its parent, but that requires calculating the hash of
> both its children, meaning that you need to calculate the hash of node that
> you were trying to calculate in the first place.
> >>
> >> Am I reading it wrong (and if so, can there be more clarification
> added), or is there a bug in the definitions?
> >>
> >> Also, when calculating the hash of a struct, is there a prescribed
> serialization format to use, or is it up to the application to define the
> serialization format?
> >>
> >> Thanks
> >>
> >> Hubert
> >>
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> >
>
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