[OpenID] Signing method for XRD

[John Bradley]

Peter,

Yes some of us see the possibility of XRD as signed meta-data being a  
useful alternative to X.509 eventually.

If we have an signature method that supports enveloping signatures,   
XRD will be more useful for those applications.

We can opt for the simplest signing, that of signing the binary  
representation of the XRD and keeping the signature in a detached file.
This may make life simpler for scripting languages dealing with  
cannonicalization  but at the cost of making it awkward to deal with  
in other environments where having the signature in the same document  
is very useful.

Full XMLDsig is ugly because of qnames and other issues.   We are  
proposing a constrained implementation that eliminates most of the  
cannonicalization complexities,  but is still compatible with existing  
libraries.

John B.
On 10-Jun-09, at 12:10 PM, general-request at openid.net wrote:

> Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:10:44 -0700
> From: Peter Williams <pwilliams at rapattoni.com>
> Subject: Re: [OpenID] Signing method for XRD
> To: Santosh Rajan <santrajan at gmail.com>, "general at openid.net"
> 	<general at openid.net>
> Message-ID:
> 	<BFBC0F17A99938458360C863B716FE46398DCE8FDD at simmbox01.rapnt.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
>
> my first reaction was ugh - xml-dsig has its own inband mechanism  
> for referencing keying material - and here is openid/xrd doing yet  
> another standard for verifying signatures and validating the  
> supporting keying material (probably poorly).
>
> My second reaction on reflection was that xml-dsig is rarely used to  
> its full potential. Its typically used as a PKCS7 signing and  
> sealing emulation modes, with an XML centric view of the world -  
> with no particular benefit. But, if xml dsig fully uses its external  
> references, and the references are to a world of XRD files which are  
> TRUSTED to act as a key distribution mechanism, things get rather  
> more interesting. In that world, the XRD is becoming a certificate,  
> as we know it - and one whose format and semantics would enable it  
> to go beyond the staid ol X.509 cert chains and benefit the full  
> expression power of xri queries and XRI resolution.
>
> What the X.509 v3 format work took part (divorcing asymmetric key  
> management from dap/ldap resolution), XRI/XRD may be putting back  
> together: query-based named-key resolution supporting trust fabric  
> meshes.
>

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