In SAML meta-data using keyinfo is not uncommon in a number of federations.  

Some use self signed x.509 certs but that is recommended against by some 
federations.

If we look at existing examples of JSON encryption/signature they all avoid or 
provide options to having to parse a x.509 certificate.

The anti x.509 bias amongst some developer communities can be a real roadblock 
in my experience.

John Bradley

On 2011-07-15, at 9:56 PM, Stephen Farrell wrote:

> 
> Hi Mike,
> 
> On 16/07/11 02:13, Mike Jones wrote:
>> Some use cases require a compact, URL-safe data representation.  For 
>> instance, this is needed when the data is passed in a URL query parameter - 
>> particularly for feature phone browsers that may limit URLs to 1024 or 
>> sometimes even 256 characters.  That's one concrete example of something not 
>> covered by CMS.
> 
> Note that no-one afaik is suggesting using ASN.1 encoding, so
> any JSON specific payload encoding stuff has to be work for woes
> to do. I would assume that that's up for debate all right, but
> don't see that it has anything to do with CMS, same as CMS
> doesn't itself say anything about MIME body parts which is
> handled in another S/MIME RFC entirely.
> 
> So, unless I'm missing something this is not a missing bit
> of CMS but rather an additional, payload-related (from the
> crypto p-o-v) requirement that you're expressing.
> 
>> Some end-to-end use cases require a JSON key representation and ways of 
>> referring to them.  That's another concrete example of something not covered 
>> in CMS.
> 
> So some way to identify keys is clearly needed all right and I tend
> to agree that that's an area where CMS is too X.509 specific in that
> CMS dives inside the X.509 structure.
> 
> But there are well known choices, as I mentioned in a mail yesterday,
> so I still don't see that there's a real need for a JSON
> representation for keys, (though it might still be sensible), can
> you clarify when you'd need to say refer to an RSA public exponent
> specifically, or to an ECC parameter?
> 
> While I think XMLDSIG's KeyInfo is better than IssuerAndSerialNumber,
> I'm not at all sure anyone really uses the <Exponent> element for
> anything that wouldn't work just as well with the base64 encoding
> of an X.509 blob. But its been a while, so maybe RSAKeyValue is more
> useful than I recall.
> 
> If there's never a need to refer to the RSA public exponent or
> equivalents for other algorithms, then you don't need a way to
> represent keys in JSON, but rather a way to put some key
> representation or key identifier inside square brackets in a
> well defined way. The latter, done smartly, should take a whole
> lot less effort to get right would be my guess.
> 
> S.
> 
>> 
>>                              -- Mike
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of 
>> Stephen Farrell
>> Sent: Friday, July 15, 2011 5:36 PM
>> To: Dave CROCKER
>> Cc: [email protected]
>> Subject: Re: [woes] New WOES charter proposal
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 16/07/11 01:23, Dave CROCKER wrote:
>>> 
>>> On 7/14/2011 1:45 PM, Stephen Farrell wrote:
>>>>> The first requirement is for proponents to provide much more 
>>>>> explicit details about what is being proposed in the use of CMS.
>>> ...
>>>> Well, I don't really follow your logic there, but we're not aiming to 
>>>> do a new thing here.
>>> ...
>>>> Anyway the path for developing yet another crypto format is a pretty 
>>>> well trodden one and IMO CMS is the best current starting point for 
>>>> that process, so I think its entirely reasonable to ask people why 
>>>> they disagree with that.
>>>> 
>>>> It does of course presume familiarity with CMS, but then that should 
>>>> be a prerequisite for working on woes, really.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Steve,
>>> 
>>> Oh.  This working group is merely a CMS encoding exercise?  That was 
>>> not at all clear previously.
>>> 
>>> I suspect I am not the only one who missed this as the anchoring and 
>>> inflexible premise to the work.  (For reference, that requires even 
>>> stronger language than is in the current draft.)
>> 
>> Maybe you could put [] around the sarcasm, given that this is JSON related? 
>> :-)
>> 
>> I asked for examples of what's not covered by CMS but is needed here. I did 
>> that actually wanting to get an answer since I may well be missing 
>> something. (So far, no substantive answer has been offered.) I was not 
>> trying to score some rhetorical points.
>> 
>> S.
>> _______________________________________________
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>> [email protected]
>> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/woes
>> 
>> 
> _______________________________________________
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