Reiterating (and including below) what I said in response to Mike's suggestion https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/jose/wBQR1eCcZ4rpqsPV2qJ8NCnT9Fk/ , my preference is Option 2 with slight modification around the word "legitimate" in that sentence in Section 1.1.
The subtext here, I think, is that the actual legitimacy of those cases is considered very questionable by many/most folks with knowledge of the larger situation. Such cases would have been easily and directly served by just sending the bare payload (maybe properly encoded for context) without any conception of JW[S/T]. Introducing a signature that's not a signature (which is what "alg":"none" does) violates the layering and semantic meaning of JWS/JWT in a way that enables applications and libraries to (understandably) easily and repeatedly make mistakes that completely undermine the security assurances of the whole stack. It is a specification design mistake that has caused immeasurable and irreparable harm across the board, including reputational damage to JOSE, JWT, and the IETF itself. The "legitimate use cases" are not actually legitimate and unnecessarily accommodating them in JWS/JWT has caused serious and widespread collateral damage. So, when I said that I thought that the text at https://www.ietf.org/archive /id/draft-ietf-jose-deprecate-none-rsa15-02.html#section-1.1-4 (and quoted below) provides even-handed treatment, I was trying to graciously say that I thought Neil had been unduly and admirably gracious in his treatment of the subject. > Although there are some legitimate use-cases for Unsecured JWS, these are > relatively few in number and can easily be satisfied by alternative means. > The small risk of breaking some of these use-cases is far outweighed by the > improvement in security for the majority of JWS users who may be impacted > by accidental acceptance of the "none" algorithm. Given this discussion, I'd suggest the word "legitimate" be replaced with "ill-conceived" in that text. Or, barring that, just removed. If, as has been suggested, the OpenID Connect cases are added to the draft, they should not be legitimized but rather qualified as the unnecessary mistakes that they are. On Mon, Feb 2, 2026 at 10:41 PM Karen ODonoghue <[email protected]> wrote: > JOSE Working Group Members, > > We are following up on discussions at IETF 124 on > draft-madden-jose-deprecate-none-rsa15. > > Firstly, thank you to Neil for your work on this draft and to those who > have provided review thus far. > > The one remaining outstanding item for this draft is whether to add text > to capture legitimate use cases of "none" as suggested by Mike in his > review > https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/jose/Z4IJGxKubk81LK8ZKYjY3prPmis/ > > This was discussed in Montreal, with views both for and against this > addition, and we agreed to follow up with discussion on list. With that in > mind, we’d like to ask for a rough consensus on which of the following two > choices you prefer: > > Option 1) Change the text in Section 1.1 to include the following > suggested text: > "One of the legitimate use cases for Unsecured JWSs is OpenID Connect ID > Tokens secured by sending them over a TLS connection, as described in > Section 2 of [OpenID.Core]. Another legitimate use is unsigned request > objects, as described in Section 6.1 of [OpenID.Core].” > > Option 2) Leave the text in Section 1.1 as it currently is: > "Although there are some legitimate use-cases for Unsecured JWS, these are > relatively few in number and can easily be satisfied by alternative means.” > > In the absence of a compromise on some alternative text that is agreed to > by rough consensus, we will need to make a choice between the two above > approaches. > > Please respond to this email with your preference for Option 1 or Option > 2. > Please provide a short rationale. so we can capture the view of the > Working Group and move this draft forward. > > This consensus call will last for two weeks ending on Tuesday, 17 February > 2026. > > Thanks, > JOSE Chairs > _______________________________________________ > jose mailing list -- [email protected] > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > -- _CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This email may contain confidential and privileged material for the sole use of the intended recipient(s). Any review, use, distribution or disclosure by others is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by e-mail and delete the message and any file attachments from your computer. Thank you._
_______________________________________________ OAuth mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
