I'd overlooked this note earlier, so am just replying now.  Jim, the case of 
detached additional authenticated data is an interesting one.  Thanks for 
bringing this up.

As an initial reaction, is there a reason this couldn't be handled in the same 
manner as detached payloads, as is done in JWS Appendix F 
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7515#appendix-F, by omitting the AAD value in the 
transmitted form but including it in the integrity computation?

                                                            -- Mike

From: Cose [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jim Schaad
Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2015 4:19 PM
To: [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: [Cose] Use of supplied authenticated information with AEAD algorithms

In the process of going through the use cases that have arisen for dealing with 
the COSE world in ACE.  I have come to a realization that we have perhaps 
messed up the paradigm for additional data when dealing with AEAD algorithms.  
I don't think this is an issue for the world which JOSE came out of, but it may 
be an issue going in the future and is definitely an issue for the world of 
CoAP.

In JOSE we make the assumption that all of the additional authenticated data is 
transmitted as part of the JOSE message.  This makes sense because we did not 
have a large number of cases where it would not be.  However, if one looks at 
the CoAP/ACE world this is not always true.  In their case they are going to 
want to potentially have both authenticated data carried as part of the 
message, but also have authenticated data which is carried in the envelope.

Case of sending a JWT, this would be the equivalent of needing to send the name 
of the originator in the headers and still wanting to have it validated as part 
of the token.  (As opposed to just sending it in the body of the JWT.)

I don't know of any cases currently where this is a problem for JOSE.  I do 
know that it is a potential problem for COSE.

Can any body think of a use case for JOSE where this paradigm needs to be fixed?

Jim

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